To us “politicals” most of the officers behaved with formal correctness, and tried to avoid any conflicts. But apart from their general attitude, there were numerous petty details—slight enough in themselves, but of great importance to us on such a long journey—that were sometimes subjects of dispute; for instance, the hour of starting in the early morning, as I have already mentioned; and we had discussions with various officers about other things, such as keeping the wooden tub in our room all night, which we declined to do, as it poisoned the air, and also on account of the ladies who had to share the room with us. If the officer were ill-tempered or obstinate, trifles like these might be the occasion of insults and bullying on his side that would lead to revolt and violence on ours; and then a court-martial with its cruel verdict loomed before us. Fortunately, things never went so far as that,—thanks partly to our having in our midst a few older and wiser heads, who exercised a calming influence over the rest, besides three men who had had considerable experience of intercourse with the authorities, as they were going to Siberia for the second time, having previously been “administratively” exiled—Malyòvany, Spandoni, and Tchuikòv. We owed much also to the exertions and tactful counsel of our head-man, Làzarev.
It happened sometimes that we came across officers who were ready to show us many small kindnesses—lending us newspapers and paying attention to our comfort in any way possible to them. On one or two occasions we had unexpected bits of good fortune. An officer, recognising a school-friend in one of our comrades—Snigiriòv, a veterinary surgeon—was much moved at the meeting, and during the two days of his accompanying us did all he could to help us. Another officer announced himself as a sympathiser with Socialism. He had mixed in revolutionary circles, and made no secret of his views, being in entire agreement with us. He told us he read a good deal of forbidden literature, and we discussed many political problems with him. Naturally it was a pleasant surprise to find a man of kindred opinions among the instruments of despotism.
The polite behaviour of most officers towards us may possibly have been due to an amusingly mistaken notion, of which by chance we discovered symptoms. On entering one of the halting-stations we found in the room to which we were shown a plainly dressed man with handcuffs on his wrists. He turned out to be a political exile named Stephen Agàpov,[[62]] a factory hand, who was now being removed from Eastern to Western Siberia as a mitigation of his punishment, in accordance with the coronation manifesto of 1883. His wife, a Siberian peasant, accompanied him. Agàpov explained to us that when our party was expected the officer had ordered him to quit that room, because a party of “politicals” was coming, composed entirely of counts and princes, and that these noble personages would never put up with having a common workman in the room with them. Agàpov and his wife thought this no reason why they should be turned out of the room intended for political prisoners like themselves, and they refused to obey, which led to a violent scene, and Agàpov was put in irons. Worse still, the irate officer had another punishment in store for him. The pair had with them all their belongings—the fruits of hard work in Eastern Siberia—making a weight of luggage beyond what was permitted by the regulations. The officer immediately ordered everything above the prescribed weight to be sold by auction to the people of the place—a pure piece of malice, as even the ordinary exiles were always allowed excess luggage, and still more those who were benefiting by the act of grace.
This tyrannical performance incensed us highly, and our good head-man went at once to the officer with an appeal for the release of our comrade from his fetters, which was granted without much ado. The comic part of the affair was that we ourselves should figure as princes and counts! In reality there was not one among us of such rank, but the legend had probably arisen from the addresses of letters sent by members of our party to Prince Volhònsky, Count Leo Tolstoi, and other well-known people of title. The affair had further consequences for the poor Agàpovs, as the officer reported them for disobedience, violence, etc., and they were sent to one of those “towns” to the north of Tobolsk that I have previously described—a far worse locality than that from which they were being brought as an act of clemency.
CHAPTER XX
FROM KRASNOYARSK TO IRKUTSK—MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND DISPUTES—THE WOMEN IN IRKUTSK PRISON
The distance from Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk is about five hundred versts, and took us a full month to accomplish—twenty days on the march and ten days of rest between the stages. In Krasnoyarsk we were to wait a week, the ordinary prisoners being taken to the deportation prison and we ourselves lodged in the town gaol. On arriving there we were struck by the orderliness of the arrangements. The spacious new building was freshly whitewashed, and the whole place spotlessly clean; there was light and air in abundance, and there were no bars to the windows. We might have imagined that we had been brought to a decent hotel; I have certainly never seen another prison like it in either Siberia or Russia. When we entered the corridor, however, the air of comfort was somewhat lessened by inscriptions on the cell doors—“For murder”; “For robbery”; “For theft,” etc. The governor, a pleasant-looking man, came up and ordered briefly and decisively that we should be placed in separate cells, and each according to his special class—convicts, exiles, and “administratives”—as that was the rule of the place. This did not suit us at all, and we explained to him the upset it would mean to our feeding arrangements; besides which, as during our two months’ journey we had clubbed all our luggage together, it would be very awkward to change all that at a moment’s notice. Moreover, we told him, we did not wish to be treated in any different way from that prescribed by the regulations; that we were on transport, and therefore not supposed to conform to the rules of the place, which only applied to prisoners on remand or under sentence there. It had nothing to do with us, we said, that we had not been taken to the deportation prison where we belonged; and—to sum the matter up—we intended to do here as everywhere else, i.e. we should divide into groups convenient to ourselves in the different rooms, and might be locked up by night, but not by day, as set forth in our instructions.
The governor was much put about at receiving this answer, and declared he could on no account permit such an infringement of his regulations; but we refused to be lodged separately, and remained firmly planted in the corridor, bag and baggage. The chief of police was now sent for: a perfect Falstaff, and—as it turned out—a very ignorant fellow. He likewise pronounced that we must conform to the regulations; to which we made our former reply, claiming our rights. As we were reasoning with him, one of the ladies happened to mention the word “goumànnost” (humanity), and—like the postmaster in Gogol’s immortal comedy, who did not know whether “mauvais ton” might not mean something worse than “rascal”—so this good man became uneasy as to whether the unfamiliar word might not contain some offence, and demanded an explanation, with which—repressing our amusement—we furnished him. In the end this functionary decided that a still higher power must be referred to—the governor of the district; meanwhile there next successively appeared the colonel of the gendarmerie and the public prosecutor, to whom we again explained our position. They could find nothing to say against our representations, and after the discussion had lasted a long time—we camping out in the passage all the while, unable to unpack or prepare a meal (although we had eaten nothing since early morning and were fearfully hungry)—at last the good people agreed that, pending the arrival of the governor’s decision, we should make our own arrangements.
Next day as we sat at dinner the chief of police appeared in full parade uniform, with his helmet on.
“Gentlemen, I am to inform you of the governor’s decision,” he began ceremoniously, when our head-man interrupted him with the request that he would uncover his head.
“Gentlemen, you see I am in parade uniform, and the helmet is part of it; I cannot take it off,” he stammered, doubtful if this were not some new form of insult.