A visitor was announced while we were at supper. This, I may mention, is one of the chief drawbacks of Siberian travel. No matter how late the hour, or how tired he may be, every traveller is bound, by the custom of the country, to receive any one who chooses to call upon him, often enough from idle curiosity. I was told in Moscow, that such persons are often spies, employed by Government. If so, the individual who now made his appearance had a peculiar way of pursuing his calling.
M. Dombrowski was, according to his own account, a Pole, who had been banished to Tomsk for a short period, on account of an article written in a Warsaw paper. He was a tall, pale young man, with washed-out features, clad in a long black cloak about three sizes too large for him, which he wrapped loosely about him in the fashion of a Roman toga. His official cap, with green band and button, proclaimed him a servant of the Russian Government; as we afterwards discovered, a clerk in the court-house at Tomsk.
We were both tired to death, and I felt strongly inclined to get up and kick the stranger down-stairs, when, having taken off his cap, he took his seat at the table without invitation, produced a dialogue-book, and calmly helped himself to a glass of claret. But the cool impudence of the man was amusing, too, so we made the best of it, and ordered up another bottle of wine, and a cutlet for the poor devil, who looked half starved, and as if he had lived on wood shavings for a month or two. The kindness was misplaced, for he utterly declined to leave till about 6 a.m., when we were compelled to eject him by main force, not a very difficult operation after the repeated libations of kümmel and vodka of which he had partaken at our expense. Under their influence the wretch confessed that he had never really had an idea of accompanying us to Tomsk; but the news had spread in less than half an hour, that two Englishmen had arrived in Krasnoiarsk, and always having had an intense admiration for the English nation, our friend had determined on making our acquaintance. We had the satisfaction of paying him out and making him feel thoroughly uncomfortable once during the evening, when Lancaster, in answer to his toast of “England,” responded by drinking to the health of “Poland!” “For God’s sake not too loud, gospodin,” said our unwelcome guest. “If those words were heard by the keeper of this hotel, they would give me another year in Siberia. There is no Poland now.”
On leaving the hotel, our strange and now somewhat drunken acquaintance presented us with his card, and by the aid of a dialogue-book, essayed to convey how much he had enjoyed his evening, and morning, for the sun was now high over the house-tops. His card (a half-sheet of note-paper), bore the following inscription scrawled upon it with a lead pencil:——
“Monsieur le Gentilhomme,”
“(Noble) Dombrowski,
“Eau (sic) Palas de Justice,”
“Eau” Tomsk——
“La Siberie de Russie.”
I did not think it necessary to inquire whether it was customary for Polish noblemen to wear no shirt, eat meat with their fingers, expectorate freely during dinner, and perform various other little feats too numerous to mention. These harmless eccentricities may have been born of exile. The “Grentilhomme Noble” gave one, at any rate, a favourable idea of the capacity of his race for drinking, his share being five bottles of claret, a bottle of kümmel, and two of vodka. Bore as he was, I could not help pitying the poor wretch, who was sent to Tomsk nominally for six months, but had already been there nearly two years. His salary was, he told us, 20l. English per annum, and on this he had to live and clothe himself. “The criminals are better off than we, gospodin,” he said, as he took leave of us. “Let them know in England how we are treated in this cursed country. How a murderer who kills his whole family, has a far easier time of it than the unhappy man or woman who ventures to stand up for the people.”