CHAPTER XXI
THE CHIEF OF POLICE AT IRKUTSK—MEETING WITH EXILED COMRADES—FROM IRKUTSK TO KARA—STOLEN FETTERS—A DUBIOUS KIND OF DECABRIST—ANOTHER CONTEST—ARRIVAL AT OUR JOURNEY’S END
The detailed narrative of all that these women had gone through impressed us greatly; for their sufferings had been severe, and often caused by the most paltry tyranny. The wonder was that they had ever been able to hold out. Our indignation against the chief of police, under whose auspices this sort of thing had gone on, was naturally roused to such a pitch that we longed for an opportunity to testify our abhorrence of his conduct. This opportunity was soon forthcoming. A higher official from Petersburg, who was inspecting Siberian prisons, came one day with his suite into our cells, and the chief of police was in attendance. The moment he entered, Làzarev, our head-man, went up to him, (in accordance with a predetermined agreement of our party,) and said in loud and distinct tones—
“We are astonished at your impudence in daring to appear before our eyes, after having by your treatment forced our women comrades into a terrible hunger-strike.”
The whole company of our visitors hastily took their departure, to the tune of our comments and ejaculations, which contained nothing flattering to the evildoer! No untoward results followed our action, and the ladies heartily rejoiced at this humiliation of their torturer.
From these four we heard much about the conditions of life in Kara, our appointed destination; as also from another comrade now in Irkutsk, who could give us his personal experience of the prison there. This was Ferdinand Lustig—formerly an artillery officer, and afterwards a student at the Petersburg Technological Institute—who had been sentenced in 1882, in the case of Suhanov and Mihaïlov, to four years’ penal servitude. He had now ended his term in Kara, and was going to be interned elsewhere, under police supervision. What he told us was not comforting: the régime was severe, and the governor of the political prison—a captain of gendarmerie, named Nikolin—of the worst repute.
Four of us only were to travel eastward together: Maria Kalyùshnaya, Tchuikòv, Làzarev, and myself. The other seven were to be sent to various places in the government of Irkutsk; and the nineteen-year-old Rubinok, whose sad case I have already described, was to go northward to the deserts of Yakutsk.
At the end of September we started, in company with a party of ordinary prisoners. We had now before us a journey of some twelve hundred versts (eight hundred miles), which would take at least two months. Winter in Siberia begins much earlier than in other places of the same latitude, even in European Russia, and therefore we had to expect many hardships. In two days the last steamboat was to start for Listvinitchnaya, across Lake Baikal, and if we missed that we should have to winter in Irkutsk.
The tempestuous Baikal treated us kindly on the whole, though usually the autumnal storms are a real danger to voyagers on its waters. It is often asserted that the scenery of its shores rivals that of the Swiss mountain lakes; and without myself instituting any comparison, I can vouch for it that the impression those magnificent hills made on me was unforgettable.
We had to pass a night at the landing-station on the opposite shore—Mysovaya; and we had been already shut into our prison, when the grating of the lock again sounded, and the warder brought in a young lady, who came straight towards me.