My trouble was so far rewarded that the inhabitants expressed their gratitude to me in various ways, and the officials seemed to be impressed by my promptitude. I had accomplished my task some little time previously when one day in January, 1897, the starshinà paid me another visit. The good man had again something to ask me. It was prescribed by the instructions that the head of every census-area should finally call together a certain number of the persons who had undertaken the work of enumeration in his district—one from each commune—to correct the results and draw up a general report.
The head of our district was, as I have said, my old opponent the prìstav; and I now learned that that gentleman was particularly desirous to persuade me, through the mediation of the starshinà, to represent our commune—the Shilkìnskaya Vòiost—at the committee of census-takers for his district.
The proposal had much to attract me. For more than eleven years I had never left Kara, and I knew only the adjacent villages. Now I was offered the chance of travelling a distance of some hundreds of versts, and that in a province which, as I was aware, contained much that was of great interest. The work of drawing up the general report likewise interested me. The only objection was association with a man I had come against in such an unpleasant way; but the eloquence of the starshinà again prevailed over my doubts, and I agreed to undertake the task. Permission for me to leave my place of internment was at once given, and I set off on my journey.
Of course I travelled at the State’s expense. I received a pass from the Governor, which entitled me to requisition horses for my use wherever I went, and to lodge in the zèmskaya kvàrtira, or official residences;[[113]] in short, I was for the time being an official travelling on Government business.
A journey of the kind in a Siberian winter is no trifling matter. I was clad in furs, a dohà over all the rest, and so wrapped up in a fur rug that I could hardly move in the sledge. The road ran for the most of the way through a practically uninhabited part of the province, a hilly, thickly wooded country, and the horses had hard work to get the sledge along. Every thirty or forty versts we came to a halting-station, where the horses were changed. When I arrived everyone was always most subservient and polite, giving me such a reception as befitted a very important official, which was sometimes extremely funny. At the first station where I was to spend the night, the elder of the village displayed a perfect fever of official zeal. I arrived late in the evening, and had at once sought my bed, when the man came to me, much disturbed.
“Has your Excellency any orders for me?”
I begged him to see that horses were ready for my start next morning; but that did not seem to satisfy him. He said that my gracious commands should be obeyed, and still insisted on decorating me with a title. When I explained to him who I really was, he admitted “certainly that was another thing”; but orders he was determined to have, notwithstanding, and asked if he should not fetch the census-takers of the village to wait on me. I naturally did not wish to disturb them in the middle of the night, which he could not understand at all. The people of other villages also astonished me by the fervour of their attentions; and I could not quite comprehend it, until I learned that our masterful prìstav had travelled by the same route a few days before, and had spurred up his subordinates with injunctions to receive the “Censor of Shilkinskaya” (as I was entitled) with all honour, and to fulfil his orders most carefully.
As I approached the goal of my journey I met at the stations other census-takers, also on their way to the conference. Among these people a rumour was current that the head of our district had found the lists submitted to him unsatisfactory, and that the whole business would have to be done over again. Of course my colleagues were rather troubled over this, for such an undertaking might easily cost them several days’ work, and they had left pressing affairs behind them. Besides, the census-takers received but very scanty remuneration for their exertions—a few roubles only; or, if they preferred it, a medal which the Government had had struck for the purpose.
After two days I arrived at the Stanitsa Aigùnskaya, where the conference was to be held. I had been wondering all this while how my meeting with the prìstav would go off, and he, too, seemed to have had the same anxiety; for I had scarcely awakened next morning when a Cossack came to the zèmskaya kvàrtira, where I and the other census-takers had slept, and announced that the prìstav wished to speak to the Censor of Shilkinskaya. I told the man to say I would come as soon as I could, made a leisurely toilet, and had my breakfast. But in a short time appeared a fat man of about fifty, in the uniform of a police official, who introduced himself as “Head-of-the-census-district-of-so-and-so Bìbikov”—my prìstav, in fact. I on my side announced myself as “Census-taker Deutsch,” and we chatted together most peaceably, as if we had never fallen out in our lives. The tormented man at once poured out his troubles to me. He could not manage his task at all, and confessed that he could not make head or tail of the divers instructions, orders, and circulars of the various authorities; neither did he know how to proceed with the examination of lists and drawing up of the report for his district. And then there were thirty census-takers worrying him, some of whom had come a whole week’s journey from their homes; naturally they wanted to get back, and they were pressing him to release them, but he could not accede to their wishes, as all the lists seemed to him inadequate. His moving tale ended with a petition that I would stand by him; he knew how well I had managed things in my division, and I was the only man who could help him to bring this difficult task to a satisfactory conclusion. Several of the other census-takers, too, urged me to take the thing in hand; and as I was interested to see how the work had been started from the beginning, and what a superintendent like the prìstav was expected to do, after some hesitation I consented, for which my quondam enemy thanked me effusively.
When we entered the official building the office was full of people. These were the census-takers, among whom were all kinds of persons—clerks, medical men, schoolmasters, and a great many Cossacks. Directly they saw the prìstav they crowded round him, begging him to try and finish up with them.