CHAPTER XXII
FIRST DAYS AT KARA—FRIENDS OLD AND NEW

We entered a long, dimly-lighted corridor. Close to the door stood a man in convict dress beside a mighty chest. “Good day, Martinòvsky!” said I; for although I had never seen him before, I knew from our comrades’ descriptions that he, being stàrosta, remained on duty from early morning till late evening by this big chest, which was the prisoners’ larder. He looked a little surprised at the greeting, but on our announcing our names a pleasant smile lighted up his grave features, and he shook hands with us warmly.

“Deutsch goes to No. 2 and Tchuikòv to No. 4!” The gendarme’s announcement interrupted us. A door was opened, and I stepped into my room. It was a large apartment; a long table and benches stood in the middle; round three walls ran the bed-shelves; there was a huge stove, and three great windows admitted plenty of light.

My new companions welcomed me warmly. There were fifteen men in the room, two of them—Sundelèvitch and Paul Orlov—being already known to me from of old. The first question to be settled was where my sleeping-place should be, and it was decided that I should lie next to Sundelèvitch, which meant that Starinkyèvitch, whose place this had been, must find room elsewhere. I found later that it was a great sacrifice this comrade had made for me, for Starinkyèvitch was thereby separated from his friend Martinòvsky. In a room where so many men lived constantly crowded together, the only possibility of close intercourse and the sharing of intimate thoughts between two friends was when they lay side by side on the bed-shelf, and it was only subsequently that I found out what significance this had in our situation.

When we arrived, supper was already over, but we were given each a glass of tea with a tiny scrap of sugar, and a piece of black bread. I was overwhelmed with questions, and was made to tell all about my arrest, my adventures, and what was going on in Russia. We chattered, joked, and laughed as only the young can, for except Berezniàk and Dzvonkyèvitch, who were forty and forty-five respectively, we were all between the ages of twenty-four and thirty. I had an odd feeling, as if after a long absence I found myself once more in an intimate family circle. Time flew, and it was late at night before I lay down to sleep, spreading on the wooden boards of the bed-shelf a little mattress that I had brought with me. My journey from Moscow had lasted seven months; I was sick of moving about, and now experienced a real feeling of comfort at the idea of having come to anchor for years.

I had been rejoicing much beforehand at the prospect of meeting in Kara my old friend Jacob Stefanòvitch,[[78]] from whom I had last parted four years ago, in Switzerland. He had then returned to Russia, had been arrested in February, 1882, convicted in the “Case of the Seventeen,” and sentenced to eight years’ “katorga.” He had been two years in Kara before my arrival. As he was lodged in another room I could only pay him a flying visit that evening, for soon after our entrance the rounds were made and the doors all locked for the night. Next morning, as soon as the rounds had been made and the roll-call got over, I called to the gendarmes through the peephole in our door, and made them take me to No. 1 room, where Stefanòvitch was. During the daytime we were permitted to go from one room to another—a privilege obtained by the “politicals” only after a long, hard fight, although in the criminals’ prison the doors of the rooms had never been kept locked by day.

In No. 1 there were also sixteen men, that being the complete number; and now that we had arrived every room was full. After greeting the comrades here and chatting with my friend, I visited all the other rooms. Of course, the advent of a new-comer is a great event in the prison, and is generally expected beforehand, for notwithstanding all official precaution, a good deal of intelligence from without finds its way through the walls. The arrival is awaited with the greatest impatience, as may be imagined; and for a few days the monotony of the life is enlivened by the new-comer’s tidings of the world in general and of the revolutionary movement in particular.

Not only had I much to tell, but I was much interested in learning the views of my comrades, though all that I heard was not entirely to my liking. I recollect a conversation I had with an old acquaintance, Volòshenko,[[79]] who passed for a very intelligent man. He had been arrested at Kiëv in 1879, and sentenced to ten years’ penal servitude, afterwards increased by eleven years more in consequence of an attempted escape. When I spoke of the new tendencies in the Russian revolutionary movement, and mentioned that a Socialist group had been formed calling itself the “League for the Emancipation of Labour,” and professing the Marxian views held by the German Social Democrats, Volòshenko seemed highly amused.

“Social Democrats in Russia! That’s a comical idea! Who are these people?”