A LITTLE HAPPINESS
I arrived in Irkutsk penniless. All I possessed was what I wore. I
went to look for my sister, who was in poor circumstances and ill. Her
husband was out of work. One could not expect an enthusiastic welcome
under such conditions. I lost little time in seeking employment, and
quickly found a place as a dishwasher at nine roubles (about 19_s._) a
month. It was revolting work, in a filthy den patronized by drunkards.
The treatment I received at the hands of the clients was so unbearable
that I left at the end of the first day.
On the third day I found work in a laundry, where I had to wash
hundreds of articles daily. From five in the morning till eight in the
evening I was bent over the washtub. It was bitter drudgery, but I was
forced to stay at it for several weeks. I lived with my sister in one
small room, paying her rent. Presently I began to feel pains in my
back. The hard work was telling on me. I resolved to leave the laundry,
although my sister was against my doing so. I had no money saved.
Having had experience of concrete work, I applied for employment to
an asphalte contractor. He was kind enough to give me a trial as an
assistant foreman on a job he was doing at the Irkutsk prison. I was to
take charge of ten men and women labourers.
When I began I was met by an outburst of mirth on all sides. “Ha, ha,”
they laughed, “a _baba_ holding a foreman’s place!”
I paid no heed to the ridicule and went about my business quietly and
gently. The men obeyed, and as they saw that I knew what I was about,
began even to gain a respect for me. I was given for a first test the
preparing of a floor. Stretching myself on the ground with the rest of
the party, planning and working, I managed to finish my task a couple
of hours ahead of my scheduled time, and marched the men triumphantly
out of the building, to the utter amazement of the other foremen. My
employer was in high glee.
“Look at this _baba_!” he said. “She will have us men learning from her
pretty soon. She should wear trousers.”
The following day I was put in charge of twenty-five men. As they still
regarded me as a queer novelty, I made a little speech to them, telling
them that I was a plain peasant worker, only seeking to earn my bread.
I appealed to their sense of fairness to co-operate with me. Sending
for some vodka and sausages I treated them and won their good will
completely. My men called me “Manka” affectionately, and we got along
splendidly. I was such a curiosity that the contractor himself invited
me to his home for tea. His wife, who was a very kind soul, told me
that her husband had been praising me to her very much.
The great test, however, came several days later. I had to prove my
ability in preparing asphalte and applying it. We were all at work at
four o’clock in the morning. As the quality of asphalte depends on
the proportions of the elements used, the men were waiting with some
amusement for my orders. But I gave them without hesitation, and when
the contractor arrived at six o’clock he found the kettles boiling and
the labourers hard at work, pouring the asphalte on the gravel.
This work has to be done without relaxation, amid awful heat and
suffocating odours. For a whole year I stayed at it, working
incessantly, with no holidays and no other rest. Like a pendulum,
always in motion, I would begin my daily grind before dawn, returning
home after sunset, only to eat and go to bed to gain strength for
another day of cheerless toil.
Finally I broke down. I caught cold while working in a basement, and
became so weak that I was taken to the Kuznetzov Hospital, where I was
confined to bed for two months. When I recovered and had rested for
about a week, I returned to my job, but found it occupied by a man who
had been especially brought from European Russia. Besides, there wasn’t
much work left for the firm in Irkutsk.
My sister and her husband moved back to Tomsk about this time, and my
situation grew desperate. I looked for a place as a domestic servant,
but having no references I found it impossible to obtain one. The
little money I had finally gave out. My only friends in the town were
the Sementovskys, neighbours of my sister. I lived with them, but they
were poor themselves, and so, for days at a time, I would go without
food, my only sustenance consisting of tea.
One day I applied at an employment agency and was informed, after being
asked if I would agree to leave town, that a woman had been there
looking for a servant, and offered to pay twenty-five roubles (about
£2 12_s._ 9_d._) a month. I instantly expressed my willingness to go
to her. She appeared in the afternoon, young, beautiful, elegantly
dressed, her fingers and neck adorned with dazzling jewels. She was
very kind to me, inspected me carefully, and asked if I was married.
“I have been,” I replied, “but I escaped from my husband about
two years ago. He was such a brutal drunkard.” I was then in my
twenty-first year.
The lady, whose name was Anna Petrovna, gave me ten roubles to pay the
rent that I owed. I met her at the station, where she was accompanied
by several men friends, and we started together for Stretinsk, in a
second-class carriage. I had never been in one before in my life.
Nothing occurred on the way. I was well fed and nicely treated by her.
She spoke to me of their business, and I got the idea that her husband
kept a shop. Upon our arrival at Stretinsk we were met by a man and two
young women. The man was introduced to me as her husband, and the two
women as her foster daughters. We drove home, where I was given a neat
little room.
I was getting uneasy. Things looked suspicious. “Where is the shop?” I
inquired. “In the market,” was the answer. Anna Petrovna took me by the
arm and caressingly suggested:
“Marusenka, will you dress up nicely? We shall have guests to-night.”
And she handed me some very dainty and light garments, not at all
befitting a servant. I was amazed, and objected emphatically. “I never
wore such extravagant clothes, Anna Petrovna. I am a plain working
girl,” and I blushed deeply. I was both ashamed and afraid. I had a
premonition of evil. And when she handed me a very low-necked gown I
became thoroughly frightened.
But Anna Petrovna was persuasive and persistent, and I was finally
persuaded to put it on. It was so transparent that my cheeks burnt with
shame. I refused to leave my room, but was coaxed by Anna Petrovna
into following her. As I crossed the threshold I saw several girls
sitting in company with men, drinking beer. A young man was standing
apart, evidently anticipating our appearance. He moved toward us. Anna
Petrovna had apparently promised me to him.
Stars were shooting before my eyes. “A house of shame!” The thought
pierced my mind and made me furious. I lost all my submissiveness and
meekness. Seizing my clothes, I tore them madly into shreds, stamping
with my feet, cursing, shrieking and breaking everything that I could
get hold of. I caught up several bottles of beer and shattered them
into fragments on the floor.
This outbreak lasted but a moment. Everybody in the room was too
stupefied to move before I ran out of the house, wrapped only in a
shawl. I hastened to the police-station at a pace that made people
in the streets think that I must be mad. Arriving there I made my
complaint to the officer in charge.
To all appearance he was little touched by my story. While I prayed
for mercy and relief, on my knees before him, he was regarding me with
amusement. He drew me to him and proposed that I should go to live with
him! I was shocked and overwhelmed. He, whose duty it was to protect
me, was clearly in alliance with white slave traders.
“You are all scoundrels and murderers!” I cried out in anguish. “You
ought to be ashamed to take advantage of a defenceless girl.”
He grew angry and ordered me to be locked up for the night. The
policeman who took me away also made advances to me, and I had to slap
him to keep him away. The cell was cold, dark and dirty. I had left
my shawl upstairs. Enraged against the authorities, I broke all the
windows and hammered continuously at the doors and walls, till I was
set free in the morning.
But my troubles had only begun. I had no place to go. For two days I
wandered about the town day and night. I was starved and worn out. Then
I knelt on the bank of the river and prayed for half an hour. I prayed
devoutly, pouring out my whole soul. It seemed to me that the Lord had
heard my plea, and I felt relieved.
I resolved to return to Anna Petrovna after my prayer. I thought she
had been so kind at first that if I begged her to let me work for her
as a servant she would agree. Before entering her house I went into
the little grocer’s shop nearby, and posing as the new servant of
Anna Petrovna, who was a customer of the place, got a small bottle of
essence of vinegar. I then entered the house and was well received.
However, the solicitude for my safety angered me, and I resented Anna
Petrovna’s caresses. I locked myself up in my room, getting ready to
poison myself with the essence.
As I was saying my last prayers there was a knock at the door. “Who is
it?” I asked sharply. The reply was: “I am that young man whom you saw
two days ago in the parlour. I want to help you. I realize that you are
not a girl of that sort. Pray, open the door and let me talk to you.”
I naturally thought that this was another trap and answered wrathfully:
“You are a villain! You are all villains! What do you want with me?
What have I done to deserve torture and starvation? If I fall into your
hands it will be only when I am dead. I am going to drink this poison
and let you gloat over my corpse.”
The man got excited. He ran out into the yard, raised an alarm, and
dragging several people with him, shouted that I had threatened to take
poison. A large crowd collected round the house, and he forced the
window of my room from the outside and jumped in. Seizing the glass of
essence, he threw it out of the window, cursing Anna Petrovna and her
house. He made every effort to calm me, expressing his admiration for
my courage and virtue. His professions of sincerity and friendship were
so convincing that I yielded to his invitation to go with him to the
home of his parents.
My saviour, who was a handsome young man of about twenty-four, was
Yakov Buk. He was a man of education, having studied at a high
school for some time. His father was a butcher. I was well received
by his family, fed, dressed and allowed to rest. They were kind and
hospitable people. Yakov, or Yasha, as he was called by his intimates,
took especial care of me. He loved me, and it was not long before he
declared that he could not live without me.
I was also attracted towards him. He knew of my previous marriage and
proposed that we should live together by civil agreement, without
the sanction of the Church, a very common mode of marriage in Russia
of late years, because of the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. I
consented to his proposal, on condition that he told me the reason for
his living in a small barn in the backyard, apart from the family. He
agreed.
“When I was twenty,” he began, “my father was engaged in the business
of supplying meat to several army regiments. He was a partner in a
firm, and was assisted by my brothers and myself. Considering me the
most industrious and reliable of his sons, he entrusted me once with
ten thousand roubles (about £1,055 11_s._) to go to buy cattle. Most of
the money did not belong to him.
“On the train I was drawn into a game of cards, deliberately got up
by a gang of rascals for the purpose of fleecing innocent passengers
like myself. I lost all my money and my clothes to boot. Dressed in
rags, with two roubles, presented to me by the gamblers, in my pocket,
I alighted at the Chinese frontier in a suicidal state of mind. There
I became acquainted, at an inn, with some Chinese brigands who were
members of a band operating in the neighbourhood. One of them was the
chief of the band.
“I told him my story, adding that I would do anything to save my father
from disgrace and bankruptcy. He proposed that I should join his band
in a raid on an incoming train which was carrying fifty thousand
roubles. I was aghast at the suggestion. But then I had a vision of my
parents turned out of their house, of their property sold at auction,
and of themselves forced to go begging. It rent my heart. There was
nothing to do but to accept the offer. I was led by the chief into a
field and there introduced to most of the robbers. I was the only white
man in the band.
“In the evening we armed ourselves with daggers, pistols and rifles and
started for the railway line, where we lay in wait for the train. The
thought that I had turned highwayman nearly froze my blood. It was such
a violence to my own nature.
“The train was to pass at one in the morning. I prayed to God that He
would save me somehow from this experience. Suddenly a body of Cossacks
appeared in the distance, racing in our direction. The authorities had
been on the track of this band for a long time. Every man in the gang
threw down his weapons and ran into the forest. I, too, ran for all I
was worth.
“The Cossacks pursued us, and I was caught. As I was a Russian and a
new member of the organization, I succeeded by persistent denials of
any knowledge of the band in creating doubt in the minds of my captors
as to my participation in the projected raid. But I was arrested and
sent to the Irkutsk prison, where I was kept for a whole year. There I
came in contact with many politicals and was converted to their ideas.
Finally, for lack of evidence I was set free.
“I returned home covered with disgrace. My father had arrived at an
understanding with his partner whereby he was to pay back in monthly
instalments the sum I had gambled away. He would not let me enter the
house, but my mother defended me. There was a quarrel, which ended in
an agreement that I be allowed to occupy this barn. But my father swore
that he would disinherit me, giving my share of his estate to his other
sons.”
I soon had occasion to discover that Yasha was considered a suspicious
character by the local police, because of his imprisonment. His
kindness, too, was his misfortune. Freed or escaped prisoners would
sometimes visit him secretly and he would give them his last penny,
piece of bread or shirt. But I liked him all the more for that, for it
was this warm heart in him that had rescued me from death. We vowed to
be faithful to each other for ever. And I entered upon my duties as a
housewife.
The barn in which we were going to live was filled with rubbish, and
had never been cleaned. I applied myself industriously to making
it habitable. It was not an easy task, but I finally succeeded. We
received a gift of one hundred roubles from Yasha’s parents, and
decided to establish a butcher’s shop of our own. We got some lumber
and built a small shop. Then Yasha bought three cows and the two of us
led them to the slaughter-house, where I learned how to butcher. Yasha
ran the shop. I was the first woman butcher in that neighbourhood.
One summer day, while walking in the street, I saw some boys peddling
ice-cream. I had learned how to make ice-cream during my apprenticeship
with Nastasia Leontievna. It occurred to me that I could make ice-cream
and sell it. Finding out from the boys how much they paid for it, I
offered them better cream at a lower price and asked them to come
for it the next day. I immediately returned home and bought milk
from Yasha’s mother, who offered to give it to me without payment
upon learning the purpose for which it was intended. The ice-cream
I prepared was, happily, very good, and it sold quickly. During the
summer I earned two or three roubles daily by this means.
I led a life of peaceful industry with Yasha for about three years.
Every morning I would get up at six o’clock and go with him to the
slaughter-house. Then all day I would spend at home. There were always
many poor people, mostly women and children, stranded in our town,
which was the junction of a railway and river route. They would wander
about the streets, begging for bread and shelter. The greater number
of them would land in our barn-home. At times they would fill it
completely, sleeping in rows on the floor. Frequently they were ill. I
fed them, washed them, and looked after their children.
Yasha would often remonstrate with me for working so incessantly and so
hard. But I had my reward in the gratitude and blessings these women
bestowed upon me. There was joy in being able to serve. In addition, I
sent regularly to my mother ten roubles (about £1 1_s._) a month. Yasha
taught me in leisure moments how to read.
My name became a household word in the neighbourhood. Wherever I went
I was blessed. “There goes Buk-Botchkareva!” people would point at me,
whispering. Yasha’s parents also grew very attached to me.
It all ended one evening in May, 1912. There was a peculiar knock at
the door, and Yasha went out to admit a man of about thirty, well
dressed, with a beard and pince-nez, of distinguished appearance.
He was pale and showed signs of agitation. He stood with Yasha in
the passage-way for ten minutes, talking in a whisper. He was then
introduced to me as an old friend of Yasha’s. He had escaped from
prison and it was our task to hide him, as his capture would mean his
death. The unexpected guest was no less a person than the revolutionary
who was responsible for the death of a notorious Governor of Siberia.
Yasha proceeded to remove our bed from its corner. He next removed
a board in the lower part of the wall, revealing, to my great
astonishment, a deep cavity in the ground underneath. Our visitor was
invited to make himself comfortable there. The board was replaced and
the bed restored to its former position. Yasha and I went to bed.
We had barely put out the light when there was heard a thumping of many
feet around the house, followed by loud knocks at the door. It was
the police! My heart was in my mouth, but I feigned sleep while Yasha
opened the door. He had previously given me his revolver to hide and I
concealed it in my bosom. The search continued for nearly two hours. I
was dragged out of bed, and everything in the house was turned upside
down.
We denied any knowledge of a political fugitive, but the sheriff took
Yasha along with him. However, he was released a couple of hours later.
Upon his return Yasha let the man out of the secret hole, supplied him
with peasant clothes and food, harnessed our horse and drove away with
him before dawn, instructing me to answer to all inquiries by saying
that he had gone to buy cattle.
On the outskirts of the town a policeman, emerging from some drinking
den in a semi-drunken condition, observed Yasha driving by. He attached
little significance to the fact at the time, but when he reported for
duty in the morning and learned of the fugitive, he said that he had
seen Yasha leave the town with a stranger. I was doing some washing
when the house was again surrounded by police.
“Where is your husband?” the sheriff inquired fiercely. “Gone to buy
cattle,” I replied.
“Get ready to come with me!” he shouted angrily. I pleaded innocence,
but in a terrible voice he informed me that I was under arrest.
I was taken to the detective bureau, where a middle-aged man, who
talked very gently, and seemed very mindful of my comfort, entered into
a conversation with me and even invited me to tea, which invitation I
refused. He went about his work very craftily, and I was nearly caught
when he asked me if I had also met the young man who had arrived at our
house at nine o’clock the night before.
His information was quite correct, but I obstinately refused to admit
the truth. I declared that I knew nothing of the young man he spoke of,
but my examiner was patient. He was generous in his praise of my help
and devotion to the poor. Promising me immunity, he urged me to tell
the truth.
I would not yield, and his patience finally wore out and he struck
me furiously with a rubber whip a couple of times. I was enraged and
bestowed on him some epithets that led to my being locked up in a
cell where two drunken street women were confined. They were of the
lowest class and were venting curses on everybody. They persecuted me
unceasingly. It was a horrible night that I passed there. The stench
alone was sufficient to drive one mad. I was greatly relieved when
morning arrived, and I was taken to the office for another examination.
I repeated my denials. There followed threats of long imprisonment,
coaxings, rebukes and attempts to extort a confession from me, and I
learned that Yasha had been arrested on his way back, before reaching
home, so that he did not know of my own arrest. I was detained for
seven days, at the end of which the authorities, having been unable to
obtain anything from me, set me free.
Yasha was still in jail, and I started out to visit various officials
and bureaus in his behalf. The chief of police of the province was
then in town, stopping in the house of a friend of ours. I invoked
the aid of the latter for the purpose of obtaining an interview with
him, and finally I was admitted to the presence of a largely built man
wearing the uniform of a colonel. I fell on my knees before him and
protested my husband’s innocence, praying for mercy. I was so unnerved
that he helped me to rise and ordered some water for me, promising to
investigate the case and to secure that justice was done.
I went next to the jail, hoping to see Yasha. But there I was informed
that he had been sent to Nertchinsk, about five miles from Stretinsk. I
was not long in making an effort to catch up with him. Taking with me a
hundred roubles, I caught the next train to Nertchinsk, just as I was,
and, immediately upon my arrival there, sought an audience with the
Governor, and was told to await my turn in the line. When my turn came,
the Governor, reading my name from the list, asked:
“Well, what is your case?”
“My husband, your Excellency, Yasha Buk,” I replied.
“Your husband, eh? How is he your husband if your name is Botchkareva?”
“By civil agreement, your Excellency.”
“We know these civil marriages,” he remarked scoffingly. “There are
many like you in the streets,” and he dismissed my case. He said it
in the hearing of a room full of people. My blood rushed to my face,
and I was bitterly hurt. It was with difficulty that I got a card of
admission to the prison, but how profound was my grief upon being
informed that Yasha had spent there only one night and had been sent on
to Irkutsk.
I had barely enough money with me to buy a fourth-class ticket to
Irkutsk, and hardly any of the necessaries for a journey, but I did
not hesitate to take the next train westward. It took three days to
reach the Siberian capital. I stopped again with the Sementovskys, who
were glad to welcome me. I made my way to the Irkutsk prison, only to
discover that Yasha had been taken to the Central Distribution Prison
at Alexandrovsk, two miles from the railway station of Usolye. There
was little time to lose. I left the same day for Usolye, whence I had
to walk to Alexandrovsk.
It was late in the autumn of 1912. I started out with little food, and
was soon exhausted. It was not an easy task to get to Alexandrovsk. The
road lay across a river and through an island, connected by ferries.
On the way I made the acquaintance of a woman, Avdotia Ivanovna Kitova,
who was also bound for the prison. Her husband was there too, and
she told me why. He was drunk when the dog-catcher came to take away
his favourite dog, and he shot the dog-catcher; now he was sentenced
to exile, and she had decided to go along with him, with her two
children, who were in Irkutsk.
At the Central Prison I received another shock. I could not be admitted
without a pass. I did not know that it was necessary to have a pass I
declared. But the warden in charge, a wizened old man, with a flowing
white beard, shouted angrily at me, “No! No! Get out of here. It’s
against the law; you can’t be admitted. Go to Irkutsk and come back
with a pass, and we will let you in.”
“But I have journeyed nearly seventy miles to see him,” I pleaded, in
tears. “I am worn out and hungry. Allow me to see him just for five
minutes--only five short minutes. Is there no mercy in your heart for a
weak woman?”
With this I broke down and became hysterical. The harsh little warden,
and his assistants in the office, became frightened. Yasha was brought
in for a brief interview. The few minutes that we were allowed to
pass in each other’s presence gave us new strength. He told me of his
experiences, and I told him of mine, and we decided that I should go to
the Governor-General, Kniazev, to entreat his mercy.
It was not till late evening that I started back to the railway
station. I reached the river at dusk and managed to catch a ferry to
the island. But it was dark when I landed there, and I lost my way
trying to cross the island to the other ferry.
I was cold, hungry, exhausted. My feet were swollen from wandering for
several hours in a frantic effort to find the right path. When at last
I got to the other side it must have been about midnight. I saw the
lights across the water and called with all my remaining strength for
the ferry. But there was no response. Only the wind, shrieking through
the woods behind me, echoed my cries. I kept calling all night, but in
vain.
When it dawned I gathered my last energies, stood up and called out
again. This time I was observed, and a canoe was sent after me.
Unfortunately, it was in charge of a boy. I was too ill to move, and
he could not carry me to it. I had to creep on all-fours to the boat.
With the boy’s aid, I finally found myself in the canoe. It took him a
long time to ferry me across, and I was in a state of collapse by the
time we reached the other side. I was taken to the Kuznetzov Hospital
in Irkutsk again, where I lay dangerously ill for nearly two months.
During this time I lost all my hair and half my weight.
After my visit to Yasha he naturally told his prison mates of it, being
proud of my loyalty to him, but when days and weeks passed by, and I
did not return, his comrades began to tease him about me.
“A fine _baba_ is yours. You may indeed be proud of her,” they would
torment him. “She has found some other husband. A lot of use she has
for you, a prisoner. They are all alike, yours and ours.” Yasha took
such jesting very much to heart. He was in complete ignorance of my
whereabouts and finally made up his mind that I had betrayed him.
As soon as I was released from the hospital, I went to the
Governor-General, in whose office I was told that Yasha had been
sentenced to four years’ exile. Obtaining a pass, I went to
Alexandrovsk to see him. But Yasha would not see me. Believing his
comrades’ taunts, confirmed by my two months’ absence, he resolved that
he had done with me. I was naturally at a loss to account for this
abrupt change, and wept bitterly. Some of his acquaintances, who had
been brought downstairs, saw me crying and described to him my wasted
appearance. Then he came down.
Visitors were not allowed to come in contact with the prisoners at
Alexandrovsk. There were two steel gratings in the office, separated
by a distance of a couple of feet. The prisoner was kept behind one
grating, while the persons who came to see him were placed behind the
other. They could not touch each other.
This was the manner in which I was permitted to meet Yasha. We both
cried like children, he, at the sight of my thinness, realizing that
he had wronged me in suspecting me of faithlessness. It was a pathetic
scene, this meeting behind bars. Yasha told me that he would not be
exiled before May. As I offered to accompany him into exile, it was
necessary for me to spend the several intervening months at some work.
I also had to get permission to join Yasha in exile.
I found work with the same asphalte firm, but now as a common labourer,
earning only fifty kopeks (about 1_s._) a day. At intervals I would go
to Alexandrovsk to see Yasha. It happened once that I was working at
a job in the Irkutsk prison, and it was not long before the prisoners
knew that I had a husband in Alexandrovsk, for there was a complete
secret system of communication between the two prisons. On the whole, I
was well treated by the convicts.
One evening, however, while at work in the hall, a trusty, catching me
in a corner, attacked me. I fought hard, but he knocked me down. My
cries were heard by the labourers of my party and several prisoners.
Soon we were surrounded by a crowd, and a quarrel ensued between those
who defended me and the friends of the trusty. An assistant warden and
some guards put an end to it, drawing up a protocol of my complaint to
have the trusty tried in court for assault.
As the day of the trial drew near Yasha was urged by his
fellow-prisoners to influence me to withdraw my charge. He told me
that the law of prison communal life demanded that I should comply with
the request to drop my complaint. I knew that my refusal might mean
Yasha’s death, and when I was called in court to testify against the
trusty, I declared that there had been no assault and that I had no
complaints to make. The case was dismissed, and my act enhanced Yasha’s
reputation among the inmates of both prisons.
The winter passed. Toward Easter of 1913 I succeeded in obtaining
permission to have myself arrested and sent to Alexandrovsk, in
anticipation of my exile with Yasha. I was put in the women’s building,
in which were detained a number of women criminals. What I endured at
their hands is almost beyond description. They beat me, but I knew that
complaining would make my lot more bitter. When supper was served to
us the matron asked me if I had been badly treated. I said no, but she
must have known better, for, turning to the women, she told them not to
ill-use me.
My reply to the matron somewhat improved my relations with my
prison-mates, but they forced me, nevertheless, to wait on them and do
their dirty work. In addition to these sufferings, the food was putrid.
The bunks in which we slept were dirty. Eight of us were in one tiny
cell. I saw Yasha only once a week, every Sunday. I spent two months in
this voluntary imprisonment, but it seemed like two years to me, and I
looked forward eagerly and impatiently to the day of our starting on
the open road to exile.