RECOLLECTIONS OF SIBERIA.
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
THE STORY
OF
A SIBERIAN EXILE.
BY
M. RUFIN PIETROWSKI.
FOLLOWED BY
A NARRATIVE OF RECENT EVENTS IN POLAND.
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.
LONDON:
LONGMAN, GREEN, LONGMAN, ROBERTS, & GREEN.
1863.
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE.
It has not been thought advisable to give these papers to the public
without a few words of explanation to those readers who see them for
the first time in an English dress. It may seem that the three parts
of which the book is composed have little connection with each other,
but this is not the case. Along with the story of a Polish Exile in
Siberia will be found two chapters on the political aspects of Poland.
The first of these contains an account of those measures and events
by which the dismemberment of ancient Poland was effected. But the
Poles contend that the wrong done to their country has not stopped
there; and that she has been not only dismembered, but denationalised.
On referring to the Treaty of Vienna they find that this loss of
nationality was not contemplated by the European powers, and that it is
contrary both to the letter and to the spirit of the Treaties of 1815.
By degrees, however, whether rightly or wrongly, Russian supremacy has
asserted itself, and the story of M. Rufin Pietrowski is intended to
demonstrate what are the amenities of that régime. The Poles will not
submit to a government in which they are not allowed to participate;
and they are engaged in ceaseless attempts to elude its vigilance, and
to defy its power. They wish to organise themselves; and the executive,
obliged to act both on the defensive and the offensive towards
them, has recourse to cruel and arbitrary methods of repression.
The narrative of the Siberian Exile is a strange one, but there is
no reason to believe that his tale is otherwise than authentic. The
candour and moderation with which he speaks of the Russian officials
is highly creditable, and it deserves to be noticed, that it is the
system, rather than the men, which he attacks.
The last paper in this book will be found, without doubt, to be the
most interesting. A moment’s reflection will convince its readers
that there is no European country in which so great a change is being
effected, and of which they hear so little, as Russian Poland. Yet the
events which have recently agitated Poland are events of historical
interest, and they are not in themselves unimportant to Western Europe.
An outline of their nature and extent is given here. This history of
‘twelve months of agitation’ makes us spectators of a struggle which
the Poles have maintained against the Czar, and in which they have
proved themselves to be still full of that high, haughty, and stubborn
spirit of liberty which Edmund Burke discerned in them of yore. Their
recent efforts towards civilization and self-improvement will not
fail to ensure for them the sympathy of all who can discern in its
energy and its self-control the true greatness of a nation. Sketches
of some of the leading men of Poland will be found here: and, at this
crisis, it has been thought that an account of the career of Count
Andrew Zamoyski could hardly fail of being acceptable. If the destiny
of Poland, as a nation, be eventful and yet obscure, the destiny of
individuals has often proved under the Muscovite rule to be more tragic
and even more obscure. The Polish party in emigration, who now welcome
Count Zamoyski, have great cause to congratulate themselves that their
‘civic hero’--the best and worthiest of their patriots--has not been
sent to expiate a life devoted to his country’s good in the fortress
of Akatouïa, or in some of the desolate wastes of the Russian Empire in
the East.
The translator is in no wise responsible for any of the sentiments
to be found in this book. His task has been simply that of rendering
into English the thoughts and words of other men. In the story of
M. Rufin Pietrowski he has felt the disadvantages that attend upon
the translation of a translation; but he has striven to preserve the
integrity of the narrative, even in the smallest particulars. It is
with a view to this end that he has adopted all those Russian and
Polish phrases, idioms, and words which occur in the text of M. Klackso.
LONDON:
_November 1862_.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION. Page 1-9
Siberia--Adventures of Beniowski--Madame Felinska--M. Rufin
Pietrowski
CHAPTER I.
OF A MISSION INTO POLAND.
A passport--The journey--The Russian frontier--Kaminieç--A
teacher of languages--Annoyances of disguise--M. Abaza--Suspicions
of the Police 10-24
CHAPTER II.
OF MY ARREST AND IMPRISONMENT AT BRAÇLAW. 25-40
Arrest--Examination--Major Poloutkovskï--Journey to Braçlaw--An
accident--The prison--A Russian scene--Kiow
CHAPTER III.
OF MY IMPRISONMENT AT KIOW, AND MY DEPARTURE FOR SIBERIA. 41-59
The fortress at Kiow--Prince Bibikov--Examination--A Commission
of Inquiry--A Bible--Fellow-prisoners--The maniac--Preparations
for ‘Deportation’--The Sentence
CHAPTER IV.
OF DEPORTATION, AND THE LIFE OF AN EXILE IN SIBERIA. 60-81
The _knout_ and the _plète_--Running the gauntlet--Gangs of
exiles--Grand-Duchess Marie--The journey--Russian alms--A ‘pope’--The
Russian soldier--Omsk--Prince Gortchakov--Ekaterinski-Zavod
CHAPTER V.
THE KATORGA. 82-102
Companions in exile--The katorga--A murderer--The felons--Kantier--Pay
and punishments--The counting-house
CHAPTER VI.
SIBERIA. 103-114
Siberia--Hardships of deportation--Breaking the ban--The Abbé
Sierocinski--His conspiracy and execution
CHAPTER VII.
THE FLIGHT. 115-152
An attempt--My route--My funds--My dress--A sledge--A
Russian theft--The journey--Irbite--On foot--A night’s
lodging--Danger--Cold and famine--Paouda--The _izbouchka_--The crest
of the Ourals--Lost in the forest--Sleep--Alms--Véliki-Oustiong
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PILGRIM AND THE PILGRIMAGE. 153-169
Pilgrimages--The Bohomolets--Manners and customs in Véliki-Oustiong
--On the Dvina--Archangel--The devotions of the pilgrims--Difficulties
--Hope deferred
CHAPTER IX.
THE WHITE SEA. 170-194
The monastery of Solovetsk--The prisoner of Solovetsk--Heterodoxy
and orthodoxy--The promontory--A farther journey--Onega--St.
Petersburg
CHAPTER X.
THE RETURN TO PARIS. 195-208
The moujik’s passage--Lithuania--The Prussian frontier--Königsberg
--Arrest and captivity--M. Kamke--Bail--Flight--Arrival
in Paris--The end
POLAND
A CENTURY AFTER ITS DIVISION: 211-263
AND THE LATE AGITATION IN WARSAW.
A century--1772--Battle of Macejowice and Kosciusko--Treaty of
1815--Opinion of M. de Talleyrand--Cracow--Treaty of Vienna,
Article 6--Policy of Alexander--Policy of Prussia--Policy of the
Emperor of Austria--Nicholas the Tzar--Violent assimilation of
Poland with Russia--Posen--Cracow--The last thirty years--Massacre
in Galicia--1848--Crimean war--The Polish question--Efforts
for internal reform--Temperance league--The Agricultural
Society--Count Andrew Zamoyski--Krasinski--‘Aurora’--Amnesty
of Alexander II.--Conference at Warsaw--Position of Russia
A YEAR OF AGITATION IN POLAND. 267-321
Solution of the Polish question--War in the Crimea--Congress in
Paris--Allocution of the Czar--1856--‘No dreams’--1860--February
25, 1861--Count Andrew Zamoyski--Prince Gortchakof--His
death--General Souchozanett--The Marquis Wiélopolski--Vacillating
policy of Russia--7th and 8th of April, 1861--A contested
nationality--Horoldo--The procession--The Polish eagle--The
elections--State of siege--15th and 16th of October--General
Lambert--Exiles--Catholicism in Poland--The _Welicorus_--Poland
and Russia
THE STORY OF A SIBERIAN EXILE.
INTRODUCTION.
SIBERIA--ADVENTURES OF BENIOWSKI--MADAME FELINSKA--M. RUFIN PIOTROWSKI.
There is an expression in use in Poland which surpasses all that human
eloquence has ever employed to give intensity to despair; it consists
of the words ‘_we never meet again_:’ and thus it is that any political
exile, when about to depart for Siberia, takes leave of his family and
of his friends; ‘_we never meet again!_’ for the only way in which an
exile could find himself once more among those whom he loves would
be for him to meet them in the same place of torment. The conviction
is deep that they who are once transported to those regions of pain
can quit them no more; that Siberia never relinquishes her prey. For
nearly a century she has torn from Poland her most devoted women, her
most generous sons. Back to those realms of snow and of blood fly the
thoughts of every Pole who inquires into the past fortunes of his
family; and when the poet dreams for his country a future which is all
liberty and bliss, it is again Siberia which rears herself before his
eyes, ready after victory itself still to demand her victims. It is a
mysterious and dismal land!--a land ‘from which one returns no more,’
as the Polish peasants say, or, as Hamlet speaks of that other region
which Siberia so fatally resembles, it is an ‘undiscovered country
from whose bourne no traveller returns.’ And yet now and then some one
does come back. Sometimes at the accession of a Czar to the throne,
an amnesty (which, however incomplete it may be, receives no less the
surname of general) sends back to heart-broken families some of those
who have not wholly succumbed to pain. At least, this did happen twice
in one century; at the accession of Paul I. and of Alexander II.:
the Emperor Nicholas never felt a similar weakness. In other cases,
very rare ones, and therefore not hard to enumerate, entreaties and
prayers backed by some distinguished protection have, after years
of persevering efforts, obtained the return of the condemned exile.
Finally, we have even seen, reappearing in the light, and among the
living, those who, neither waiting nor hoping for an amnesty, whether
general or particular, have found, in their own courage and in their
own despair, a way of extricating themselves from their horrible fate;
but such a phenomenon as this is not to be met with twice in any
hundred years. Several of those who have thus returned, like ghosts
from the tomb, have afterwards written an account of their sojourn
in these desolate places; others again left notes on the spot, which
were afterwards to be piously collected; and thus it happens that the
literature of Poland possesses a complete collection of the writings of
Siberian exiles, a collection already sufficiently large, and which,
in spite of the monotony of the subject, certainly is not lacking in
interest.
Very strange in truth are the adventures of Beniowski, a soldier of
Bar, deported to Kamtschatka, organising there among its indigenous
savages a vast conspiracy, administering to them an oath of fidelity
to the confederation of Bar, passing Behring’s Straits, conquering
Madagascar, and coming to offer the sovereignty of it to the French
king. A very different fate awaited General Kopec, who was banished
some years later to the same district. Submissive, patient, almost
serene, during the time of his exile, his mind became clouded at the
moment when he was told that the hour of his deliverance had come. Joy
was too great for his soul, and he took back to his native country only
the remnants of his reason. He had some sane and lucid intervals, and
these he employed in dictating a few pages of a history of his past
sufferings, in a style at once sweet and subdued. During thirty years
did poor Adolphus Januszkiewicz, for the use of an aged mother, who
still lived in Lithuania, note down day by day the events of a life
which flowed away among the Kirghis of the Steppes; and a brother’s
hand has lately discovered to us how much filial piety and indomitable
courage filled that exile’s breast. We omit many other names; but how
can we avoid recalling Madame Eva Felinska and her book--that noble
lady and noble Christian, whom the severity of Nicholas sent to be a
dweller in Bérézov, in the middle of the Yakoutes and the Ostiaks, and
whose son has recently (April 1862) been promoted to the archbishopric
of Warsaw? What constitutes the sensible charm of Madame Felinska’s
work is not only the absence of all recrimination (the annals of the
Siberian exiles being in general free from all bitterness), but it
is the feminine modesty with which she instinctively conceals her
personal misfortunes. One might imagine while reading her pages that
they were the remarks of some enquiring person, who sojourned among
unreclaimed tribes out of pure eccentricity of mind, did not the
cries of a mother who asks for her poor little children undeceive us,
and make us only too often aware that the choice rested not in that
mother’s will. One day at Bérézov,[1] while digging a well, there was
discovered a corpse, which (thanks to the glacial nature of the soil)
seemed by its preservation, and the state of the brilliant uniform and
orders, to have been but a thing of yesterday. By dint of enquiries and
recollections, they succeeded, however, in proving that it was the body
of Prince Menstchikov, who more than a century ago had died an exile
on this very spot, after having lived the minister and the favourite
of Czars. Madame Felinska in recording the event contents herself with
exclaiming, ‘What a strange chance!’ She leaves to the mind of the
reader the task of filling in the outlines of this touching picture,
where a Polish woman, in this same land of banishment, finds herself
face to face with the man who first dared with impunity to trample on
the Sarmatian soil.
One of the most recent and remarkable publications in this the
literature of the deported (for so it is called in Poland to
distinguish it from the literature of the emigrated) is that which has
just been given to us by M. Rufin Piotrowski.[2] His book recommends
itself not only by the richness of its detail and the breadth with
which it is composed, but also, and chiefly, because the author of
it is an escaped ‘Siberian.’ In him, since the case of Beniowski, we
have the only example of a deported person who has attempted such
an enterprise, and who has also succeeded in it. It is the more
extraordinary because M. Piotrowski was also condemned to hard labour
in the public works. Beniowski, as we have seen, had much assistance
and many accomplices. A comparatively narrow tract alone separated him
from the land of freedom, whereas our contemporary had no one to rely
on but himself, and without map or succours, almost without money,
he had to traverse Siberia in its entire length, and a great part of
Russia in Europe in addition. On foot he made the long and perilous
journey from beyond Omsk in Western Siberia, penetrating the Oural
mountains to Archangel, Petersburg, Riga, even into Prussia, never
imparting to a living soul his fatal secret, in order not to involve
any one in his own probable and terrible fate. If the narrative of M.
Piotrowski has not all that romantic brilliancy which the story of
the confederate of Bar can afford, it reveals to us greater dangers
and a perseverance of will far superior in every way. Nor is the
marvellous element wanting to this strange Odyssey, albeit its hero is
no mythological being; he exists, nay, he lives among us, and we rub
shoulders with him every day. This escaped convict and exile from the
banks of Irtiche, this former _unhappy one_ (for thus do the natives
of Siberia call the deported Poles), is now a modest professor in that
excellent Polish school of the Batignolles, for which the emigrated
sons of Poland are partly indebted to the generosity of France. M.
Rufin Piotrowski was one of those heroic emissaries who, from the
extreme limits of Polish emigration, sought to carry back and impart
to an oppressed country the hopes, the ideas, and the dreams of exile;
and his narrative begins precisely at the point when he started from
Paris, on the journey which he undertook to Kaminiec in Podolia. These
emissaries brought with them, generally speaking, impossible plans,
and calls which could not be answered, because sufficient reflection
had not been bestowed upon them. Sometimes, too, they imported ideas
which were positively dangerous, and if they almost always half atoned
for their errors by a constancy which braved both death and danger;
they did not the less draw along with them in their own unhappy fate
some generous and innocent victims. M. Piotrowski has at least this
consolation, that he never made himself the apostle of perverse
doctrines, and that he never sowed the seeds of hatred. His actions as
an emissary were always enlightened by sentiments of that religious
charity to which mob law in all its meanings is utterly repugnant. The
same profoundly religious spirit characterises his book--a book which
was written now many years ago, but which, for reasons obvious in a
case of Polish publication, it was impracticable to publish before
1861. We have thought that the recollections of M. Piotrowski were
likely to find favour with the French public. At a time when nothing
else is heard of in Poland but sentences to Siberia pronounced upon
the most respectable of her citizens, upon canons, rabbins, provosts,
merchants, professors, students, and artisans, it surely cannot
be useless or amiss to explain by one striking example all that is
contained for Poland and the Poles in the single word ‘_deportation_.’
Is it necessary now to add that what we are about to read in these
pages is in every particular strict matter of fact? The narrative of M.
Piotrowski bears the stamp of truth, and of a good faith which pleads
for itself, and removes every suspicion of exaggeration. For the rest,
as we shall see, the author hardly, if ever, blames persons; as often
as not, he expresses himself with regard to them in words marked by a
lively sense of gratitude. It is the _system_ only which he accuses;
and, shall we confess it, the countrymen of M. Piotrowski, and above
all his companions in misfortune, while unanimous as to the perfect
authenticity of his tale, have rather reproached him with an excessive
indulgence in speaking of the Russian officials. How many Poles, for
example, have been surprised to see the portraits which he has sketched
of Prince Bibikov and of M. Pissarev, men whose names are so painfully
distinguished in the annals of the Poland of to-day? As we do not think
it necessary to anticipate or preach a conviction which will soon make
itself felt, it remains for us only to point out the method which we
have followed in borrowing here from the Polish original of the book.
A mere analysis would have effaced its character of individuality,
while it spoilt the originality of the book. What is presented here
is a faithful abridgement of a more detailed and lengthy narrative--an
abridgement of an abyss, if one may borrow Pascal’s energetic
phrase--for the ‘Recollections of a Siberian Exile’ reveal to us a
perfect abyss of suffering and of misery.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] We use here the Latin _v_ as the best equivalent for the _b_
(viedi) of the Russian alphabet, although the letters _f_ and _w_ in
Russian have nearly the same sound. To be consistent, it is necessary
to write not only Móskova, Iainbov, Bérézov, but Orlov, Menstchikov,
etc.: as for the name of Kiow, we adopt the orthography of the
inhabitants of this town (Little Ruthenes); the Russians alone write it
Kiew, pronouncing it always as Kiow.
[2] Pamietniki Rufina Piotrowskiego, 3 vols. in 8vo. Posen 1861.
CHAPTER I.
OF A MISSION INTO POLAND.
A PASSPORT--THE JOURNEY--THE RUSSIAN FRONTIER--KAMINIEÇ--A TEACHER OF
LANGUAGES--ANNOYANCES OF DISGUISE--M. ABAZA--SUSPICIONS OF THE POLICE.
I had long decided to take my departure for my native land, and was
only occupied by the necessary preparations for it, when I fell
suddenly sick in Paris. It was in the year 1842. I was received into
the hospital of _La Pitié_, then under the direction of Baron Lisfranc,
who had formerly served with Polish troops during the wars of the
Empire, and who still preserved towards them a friendly sentiment. A
number of my compatriots and companions in exile found themselves along
with me in the hospital, a prey to the two forms of disease so common
among us emigrants--consumption and madness. More than one of them died
in my ward, and at my side--a sight which was well calculated to sadden
my spirit, for they died, though without uttering a single complaint,
in utter prostration and gloom. One would almost have said that they
had felt, in leaving this world, as if, even in the next, for them
there might still be no country.
This sojourn in the hospital was nevertheless not without a good result
on my projects. I had the fortune to make the acquaintance of another
invalid, an American from the United States, who promised to get a
passport for me, a thing which was indispensable for my undertaking,
and which up to this time I had never been able to procure. Leaving,
after a detention of about six weeks, the hospital from which the
American had been discharged a few days earlier, I went at once to seek
him at the address which he had given me. He then and there handed
over to me an English passport, made out in the name of ‘_Joseph
Catharo, native of La Valette (Malta), aged 36_.’ The document was
quite regular, delivered at the English embassy in Paris, and signed
by the ambassador, Lord Cowley. I could desire nothing better. In my
situation an English passport was preferable to any other. I spoke
Italian perfectly, whereas I could only speak English very imperfectly;
but then my supposed Maltese antecedents would make good any failings
on that score. The different _visa_ of Baden, Wurtemberg, Bavaria,
Austria, and Turkey, were soon procured; but at the office of the
Minister for Foreign Affairs there had been put alongside of the seals
two printed lines containing these fatal words--‘Bound to present
himself at the Prefecture of the Police.’ Now I had all sorts of
reasons for not wishing to announce my departure at the Prefecture of
Police, where they might very likely have had more inquisitiveness than
I had found in my American friend. After casting about in my mind for a
long time how best to dispose of this luckless clause, I selected the
not very ingenious plan of spilling some ink over the two lines, thus
counterfeiting a big blot, and leaving nothing visible but the seal of
the Minister. The method was a rude enough one, but it was not the less
serviceable, and at none of the numberless police stations at which the
passport had afterwards to be presented was any exception taken to the
blot which disfigured it.
Thus accommodated, and furnished with 150 francs, which were to suffice
for the wants of a long journey, I left Paris on January 9, 1843.
After having traversed without hindrance Strasburg, Stuttgart, Munich,
Salzburg, and Vienna, I took the road from the last-named place to
Pesth. In the interests of my mission I was to make a month’s stay in
the capital of Hungary; and I profited by this delay, for I addressed
in the meantime to the English ambassador at Vienna the request that
he would renew my passport, my intention being to go to Russia instead
of to Constantinople, and to make a stay there of considerable length.
An answer was soon returned. At the end of a few days I received from
Vienna, in exchange for my old passport, a new one, of a recent date,
happily free from any ominous blots of ink, and _visé_ for Russia. On
February 28th, I quitted Pesth, meaning to reach Kaminieç in Podolia,
the term and goal of my voyage. I found that the small sum which I
had brought with me from Paris had, in spite of the most frugal way
of living, greatly diminished; and I resolved to make the rest of my
journey from Hungary to Podolia on foot. The season was favourable, the
scenery magnificent, the passage of the Carpathians so splendid as to
make me forget any slight fatigue. It was a strange, sometimes almost
a diverting, sensation for me thus to traverse Galicia, and to have to
ask my way in execrable German of the few Austrian officials, while the
peasants gave utterance to the most minute remarks upon me, all in that
Polish speech which I declared I did not understand. The pleasantries
of our peasants on the subject of ‘the dumb man’ did not, however, miss
fire or fail to amuse me greatly. To these jokes there were often added
on their part marks of respect to a stranger come from the ends of the
earth. ‘I am sure he comes a long way off,’ they would say to each
other; ‘from very far, from where even the crow brings no bones.’ At
last, on one fine March morning, 1843, I found myself at the boundary
which separates the Austrian and Russian territory, near the village
of Bojany. The frontier was marked by two barriers, which were distant
the one from the other by a few dozen paces. Upon showing my papers the
Austrian barrier was opened for me without any difficulty; but when I
arrived at the Russian side, it was in vain that I called and looked
round in all directions--no one came. Tired of waiting I passed by,
stooping under the beam, and directed my steps to a house at a little
distance, which seemed to be the Custom House office. The astonishment
there was great when I was seen to arrive thus unaccompanied by a
soldier.
‘How did you pass the frontier?’
‘At the barrier, down there.’
‘Who opened it for you?’
‘Nobody. I called in vain, and at last determined to slip underneath
it.’
‘What! the guard was not there at his post?’ cried the functionary, as
much exasperated he rushed out to give orders, of which his menacing
tones only too fully explained the nature. Having returned to his room,
he emptied out upon me the remains of his ill humour; but the sight of
the English passport had a sudden and pacifying effect on his wrath.
While my papers were being examined, and they took down the answers
which I made to sundry questions relating to my journey, I heard
the distant cries of the poor soldier, who was expiating under the
bastinado what had been either his negligence or perhaps indeed only
my hastiness. At last I was free to leave the office, with a feeling
of satisfaction which was not, however, wholly unalloyed. There was
indeed something ominous in this incident attending my entrance into
the territory of the Emperor Nicholas. From the first step I had defied
Russian vigilance, but I had at the same time, albeit involuntarily,
caused the punishment of an unhappy creature, and my heart was pained
at it.
On March 22nd, I reached Kaminieç, at midday. I had my portmanteau
in one hand, while with the other I opened the door of an inn that
had been pointed out to me, and I found myself suddenly in the middle
of a large assembly of people, and in a room where they were playing
billiards. I had purposely kept my hat on my head, and by this sign, so
contrary to our national habits, I was immediately recognised to be a
stranger or a _Frenchman_, for the two words are among us considered to
be synonymous. The sensation, which was evident in the room, was very
curious. ‘A _Frenchman_, a _Frenchman_,’ they murmured on all sides,
speaking with interest and even with sympathy, but with a manifest
fear of compromising themselves by an imprudent of even a friendly
word. Two men only ventured to come forward frankly and converse with
me--the one was a Pole from Cracow, only passing through Kaminieç,
and therefore less obliged to be circumspect; the other was a Russian
officer, who left the billiard-table when he heard me utter a few
sentences in French, and who immediately showed the greatest readiness
to make my acquaintance. ‘You are, then, come to stay here for some
time? Oh! pray remain, I beseech you. It is a fine country! beautiful
women, too! But it is at Warsaw especially that one finds charming
women. Ah! Warsaw! I have been garrisoned there: it is a famous place,
and _there_ really _are_ pretty faces!’ And the young man seemed not
to be able to stop in pouring forth praises which could not but be
disagreeable to me. Strange that this Poland, of which he trod the
soil, and of which he had visited all the principal towns, should have
given him nothing to see or to appreciate but the beauty of our women!
Not one word to say of the government, of the fate of the inhabitants,
of the misery of the people! His only subject of preoccupation, of
praise, and of conversation, was the female population of Poland. One
thing only turned him from this favourite topic. I happened to say
something incidentally of Paris; then he began to ask questions about
the Parisian womankind, and seemed at once pleased and excited at my
replies. On the whole he was not a bad fellow, this officer Rogatchev;
and he wound up by sharing with me the national dish of _pierogi_,
laughing all the time at the strong foreign accent with which I
pronounced the word: but he did me the justice to say soon after, that
in the matter of _pierogi_ my good appetite had made ample amends for
my bad pronunciation.
While we walked up and down the room and talked in a loud voice on
trifling subjects, the other occupants of it, all Poles and young
people, kept themselves apart and whispered together, directing towards
me from time to time oblique and curious glances. What a striking
contrast there was between their attitude of reserve and the full-blown
confidence of the happy Rogatchev! While keeping up my conversation
with the Russian officer, I endeavored to catch the words which were
passing among my countryman. ‘From France?’ ‘Does he know anything of
our people?’ ‘Do the French care about us?’ ‘Perhaps something new
is about to happen.’ My emotion was great, but I had to redouble the
animation with which I was describing to my new acquaintance the beauty
and the glories of Paris.
While so discoursing I did not omit to inform M. Rogatchev as well
as the other persons present that I had come to Kaminieç to push my
fortune as a teacher of languages, and that I desired nothing better
than to settle in the town, though, if my interests required it, I
might penetrate even to the interior of Russia. This declaration I
repeated next morning at the station of police, for I was anxious to
lose no time in establishing my position. The permission to remain
was accorded to me without hesitation. As regarded my intention of
giving lessons in private houses, I was warned that some formalities
must in the first place be attended to, and that I must formally ask
and obtain the consent of the military governor, of the director
of the Lyceum, &c. It was not long before I obtained the necessary
authorisation, and thanks to the recommendations of my officer and of
other persons whose acquaintance I made on the first day,--thanks,
above all, to those obliging cares of which a stranger is always the
object in our country, orders for lessons came to me from all sides,
and from the very first. I preferred, I must say, the houses of the
different Russian officials; it was the surest way to avoid suspicion
for myself, and to prevent compromising my countrymen. The offers made
to me by the Abaza family were really precious, and it may be supposed
that I did not neglect such connections as these; for Colonel Abaza,
President of the Chamber of Finance, was a Russian functionary at once
highly placed and very influential. I did not, however, refuse to
attend on Polish families; but I selected those which any discovery
would have the least affected, such as the houses of widows and elderly
gentlemen--those, in short, where there were no young people. After
a few weeks I had made good my position, and my relations were well
understood. I went into all circles, and all over the town I was well
known as the M. Catharo whom they persisted in calling a Frenchman.
Thus it was that, after having been an emigrant for twelve years, I
found myself again in my native land, not very far either from my own
family (which dwelt in the Ukraine), and in the quality of a Maltese,
a British subject, teaching foreign languages, and not understanding
a word of either the Russian or the Polish tongues. This last
circumstance was one which often put my caution and my _sang froid_
both to some severe trials, trials which my professorial office only
aggravated. How many times was I not tempted at some difficult idiom or
expression to explain myself to my pupils in a speech quite as familiar
to me as it was to themselves! One of my first pupils was a certain
Dmitrenko, a clerk in the Chamber of Finance, a cheerful being, who
was bitten all of a sudden with a fancy for learning French, of which
he did not know a single word. At the end of the pantomime which was
necessary to make us mutually understand each other during the lesson,
he wound up by proposing to give me some notions about Russian, with
which I was perfectly conversant; but he never managed to make me read
fluently, and he could not conceal his astonishment at this want of
intelligence in one of those Frenchmen whose wits he had heard so much
vaunted.
Among my own people, the incognito which I preserved exposed me very
often to scenes that made both my inward feelings and my sentiments as
a man of probity suffer acutely. I was the involuntary and helpless
confidant of the relations, even of the secrets, of families, who
thought that they concealed them perfectly from my knowledge by
speaking together in Polish. Nor in such conversations did I always
hear remarks that were flattering to myself. One day, for example, a
visitor who was unknown to me meeting me in a room for the first time,
and hearing that I had recently come from Paris, wished to ask me if I
knew anything of his brother, who lived in that capital, an emigrant,
and a man whom in truth I knew perfectly well; but the master of the
house dissuaded him warmly from it. ‘You know very well how strictly
we are forbidden to make any enquiries about our emigrated relations;
take care what you are about; one is never sure of one’s self with a
foreigner.’ I felt as if all the blood in my body were rushing to my
head, and I bent down quickly over the book in which I was cutting some
leaves.
I must be permitted one other recollection of this sort. I was
giving lessons to the two daughters of the good and amiable Madame
Piekutowska. One day, while conversing with them, I touched oh the
subject of Poland. The beautiful Matilda replied to my careless
expression with one of those words which we sometimes utter before a
stranger, not witting that we are making some deep wound bleed. The
elder sister took her up sharply in Polish, ’ How can you speak of
sacred things before a hair-brained Frenchman?’
Such incidents happened nearly every day, and they caused me sometimes
pleasure, sometimes annoyance; but that annoyance turned to a
concentrated rage when in Russian houses I was obliged to swallow in
silence, or discuss with the passionless calmness of a stranger,
topics wounding to my country, and such discussions as her oppressors
permitted themselves to indulge in. It was in the house of Monsieur
Abaza above all that I suffered this torture most frequently; and I
should try in vain were I to attempt to give any idea of it.
As my own safety, as well as that of others, would assuredly be
compromised were I suspected of knowing the language of the country,
I was obliged in this respect to keep a constant watch upon myself.
If I may use such an expression, I was forced to watch myself even in
sleep; and I always arranged (especially when I happened to be invited
to any of the dwellings in the neighbourhood) so as to sleep alone, and
in a separate room. I feared that during my slumbers I might chance to
mutter some sentences in Polish. But no incident disturbed me in the
part which I had assumed; and during nine months I was enabled either
to remain in Kaminieç, or to make short excursions into the provinces,
without awakening the suspicions of the police. In the eyes of Poles,
as well as Russians, I passed always for M. Catharo, an inoffensive
man, who liked society, and who was well received in it. As to the true
object of my stay, and my real character, some of my countrymen alone
became privy to it, and the secret was most rigorously kept. The alarm,
as I afterwards learnt, came from St. Petersburg, and Kaminieç was
convulsed with astonishment when it discovered all of a sudden that the
French teacher of languages whom it had harboured so long within its
walls, was a native, an emigrant, and an emissary of emigrants....
They say that men are often warned by a strange inward feeling that
danger is approaching. I had no need of such a supernatural gift to be
made aware, during the first days of the month of December, that peril
was imminent; I had only to keep my eyes about me. By the beginning
of December, I perceived that I was watched and spied upon at every
turn by emissaries of the police. The counsels which were given me
from different quarters, as well as the manner half inquisitive and
half constrained with which the Russian officials treated me, could
not but confirm my apprehensions. I have since heard that the moment
of my arrest was delayed not only from their wish to inform themselves
perfectly of my conduct, but from the difficulty which they experienced
in completely identifying my person; and their fear was lest, in case
of any mistake, they should get themselves into trouble by interfering
with a British subject; that is to say, with the subject of a power
well known not to stand any practices of that sort, or any joking on
such a matter. Very soon, however, I felt both that there was no doubt,
but that my arrest was close at hand, and also that it was time for me
to arrange my plans. Up to this moment flight had not been altogether
impossible, but it was repugnant to me. Why should I shun the dangers
to which my accomplices were exposed, who neither could nor ought to
choose the path of exile? It was therefore a strict duty which I owed
to them, and to hundreds of persons who had nothing whatever to do with
me, not to be absent when the day of enquiry came. To tell the truth,
the Russian plan, in any political search of the kind, is to arrest all
those who, from far or near, intimately or casually, may have known the
suspected person. Now, as I was acquainted with everybody, both in the
town and in its environs, the disappearance of the guilty principal
would only have served to aggravate the case of thousands of suspected
persons. The inquiry would have dragged on for years; it would perhaps
never have come to an end. My presence alone could prevent countless
misfortunes, and, if the worst came to the worst, it could limit the
number of the victims. I resolved therefore patiently to abide the
fatal hour; and I spent the days of freedom which yet remained to me
in concerting with my accomplices the plan of conduct which I ought
to follow. The last interview which I had with one of them was in a
church on the eve of my arrest. We agreed as much as possible upon all
points, and then embraced one another with an emotion which may easily
be understood. Remaining to the last, and alone in the church, I prayed
with fervour that God would give me strength to come through the trials
which might await me.
Like every Pole of my generation, I had imbibed from my mother’s
teaching a fervent attachment to the Catholic faith. But those
convictions had had their times of eclipse, and I can still recall
the moment at which they were for the first time absolutely shaken.
It was in 1831, when, after our glorious campaign, I passed into
Galicia with the corps under General Dwernicki. One day I was at
confession, when the priest, a brother of the order of St Bernard,
among other exhortations full of charity and of the spirit of the
Gospel, represented our revolution to me as a sin, and as a violation
of the oath of fidelity to Nicholas. Respect for the sacred precincts
prevented my replying to him, but, as I rose to go away, I said to
myself that the priests did not always teach the truth, and that there
were a good many tares among their wheat. Some time later, while living
in France, I began to take up, like the rest of the world, new ideas in
religion, as well as in politics. I neglected all religious exercises
and practices, and had come to look on Jesus Christ as an excellent
philosopher, or, at the best, as a democratic teacher. But the
frivolous pleasure of unbelief are soon exhausted; and long before the
period at which my narrative begins, and before my return to my native
land, I had reverted to the feelings and the belief which had guided my
youth, and in which I was to find the only true support throughout the
sad destiny that was in store for me.