“Sonia!” I cried, in joyful surprise, as I recognised in her Sophia Ivànova, a dear friend whom I had not seen for six years. Like Sophia Perovskaya, Vera Figner, and other prominent women of the terrorist organisation, she had joined the new party of the Naròdnaia Vòlya in the autumn of 1879, when the society of Zemlyà i Vòlya (Land and Liberty) was dissolved. It was just during that transition period that I became acquainted with her and with other Terrorists; and shortly after, in January, 1880, she was arrested in Petersburg, where she had been assisting at the secret printing-press whence issued the organ of the party, named like it, Naròdnaia Vòlya (The People’s Will). At the time of the arrest an armed resistance was made, in which Sophia Ivànova took an active part, for which she was condemned to four years’ “katorga.”[[71]] This sentence having been fulfilled, she was now being sent for internment into the government of Irkutsk.
We were both heartily rejoiced at seeing one another again, but our meeting could be only a brief one; the steamboat was to start almost directly on its return journey, and Sonia could not miss it. We hurriedly exchanged news of ourselves and of our common friends; then came our parting, and I have never seen her since. To the best of my knowledge she is still living in Siberia.
Soon after this we arrived at Verkhny-Udinsk, where—as in most Siberian towns—the prison was filled to overflowing, and no room could be found for us “politicals.” The sergeant (in Transbaikalia the convoys of prisoners are always commanded by a sergeant, instead of by a commissioned officer, as on the previous part of the journey) took us on to the police-station. As, however, it was late the place was all deserted, and no official could be found, which disturbed the sergeant no whit; he simply left us there by ourselves in the office, with unbolted windows and doors, and went his way. We also were free to go or stay as we pleased, and were rather surprised at his calm way of solving the difficulty. But the man knew what he was about. It was true enough that we could walk off without anyone being the wiser; but what then? It was, indeed, always easy to escape from prison here; but it was well-nigh impossible to get any further. Elizabeth Kovàlskaya had twice escaped from prison in Irkutsk (once disguised as a warder), but on both occasions she was caught before she had left the town; and if she had found concealment impossible in a relatively big place like Irkutsk, with all the allies and money she had at command, the case must certainly have been hopeless for us, strangers, in a little hole like Verkhny-Udinsk. Still, it was a curious feeling at the time, as I well remember, to know oneself free and under no kind of observation, and yet to be so helpless. We finished by waxing restive and miserable over the trap we were in.
In this place we met another comrade on his way from Kara, going off to be interned elsewhere. This was Steblin-Kamensky,[[72]] whom his wife voluntarily accompanied. They had been too late for the steamer, and were now obliged to wait in Verkhny-Udinsk till the way again became open—three or four months probably. During that time he was at liberty to go about in the place as he pleased, and naturally we spent together the two days of our sojourn here, Kamensky telling us all he could of life in Kara. He was a brilliant talker, and described with an inexhaustible flow of humour the doings of our comrades in every particular. True, our laughter over his stories was mingled with much sorrow and indignation, for what he related was often sad enough. He told us of the bitter hardships inflicted on our comrades by an inhuman gaoler, and he described Captain Nikolin, in command over the penal settlement for “politicals” at Kara, as a malicious, ill-natured man, continually devising petty humiliations for the prisoners.
These various comrades, from whose personal knowledges we had information about Kara, all made the same impression upon us. They bore the stamp of their long imprisonment; their voices were muffled in tone; anxiety, deep and constant, was painted on their faces; the hair of nearly all, despite their youth—hardly any had reached thirty—was prematurely grey. But discouraged and broken-spirited they were not; or at least with one or two exceptions only. Very few of them could regard the future with any hopeful feelings for themselves personally. Long years of exile lay before them, doomed as they were to vegetate in some forsaken corner of Siberia, victims to all sorts of hardships, far from friends and civilisation. To many it seemed questionable whether their future lot might not be more dreary than prison life itself. Yet even the semblance of freedom attracted them—a doubtful freedom certainly, for the exiles, or “colonists” as they are called, are subject to a thousand and one restrictions at every turn.
I met one only who looked forward with a steadfast confidence in the bright side of things, and this notwithstanding the fact that he was bound for the worst part of Siberia—the government of Yakutsk. Ivan Kashintsev[[73]] was then only twenty-five, and full of youth and high spirits; he declared to me, on the occasion of our meeting at one of the halting-stations (we already knew each other), that he meant to escape at all hazards. This, in fact, he accomplished later, and he is now living abroad.
Before those who were released from prison, to live in exile under police supervision, reached their appointed destinations, they had at that time many difficulties and delays to encounter. We ourselves went at a snail’s pace on our way to Kara, but prisoners coming thence progressed far more slowly. They had to wait at nearly every halting-station until some convoy on the homeward journey could pick them up and take them on for a certain part of the way, and sometimes they were kept in this manner nearly a week at a station. On an average they barely made five versts a day, and when the distance they had to travel was some hundreds or even thousands of versts, the journey might take months to perform.
At each meeting with comrades on the return journey from Kara, I could not help thinking of my own future, and saying to myself, “What will you feel like when after long years you tread this path again? Or, indeed, will you ever tread it?”