He set off on his fateful errand, all my efforts to bar his way having failed. When he appeared at the Governor’s office and requested an audience, giving his name, the clerks immediately suspected him of some sinister design. The secretary reported to the Governor that Buk, the butcher, desired an audience, but that his manner roused suspicion. The Governor ordered that he should be detained and searched. A long, sharp knife was found on him, and he was arrested, orders being given for his exile on the following day to Amga, a hamlet about one hundred and thirty miles from Yakutsk. I had only twenty-four hours to dispose of the shop, and was compelled to hand it over to a local political, with the understanding that he would pay us for it a few months later.
It was Easter Eve, 1914, when we started out in a cart, driven by a Yakut, for Amga. The mud was the worst I have ever come across. The horses sank so deep, and the wheels of the vehicle stuck so often, that frequently we had to alight and help in extricating them. We spent Easter Day in a native’s hut on the road, in which children, women and animals lived together. There is always a fire in the centre of these huts, the smoke being allowed to escape through a hole in the roof. The cows were milked in the hut, and the filth was beyond words. After supping on some bread and a sort of tea, which was unfit for human consumption, we went to sleep. The following day we resumed our journey to Amga.
CHAPTER V
ESCAPE FROM EXILE
We spent about six days on the road to Amga. It was a town with a mixed population. Half of its homes were tiny cabins, built by Russian exiles, many of whom had married Yakut women, as the latter were physically attractive and were proud to be the wives of white men. The natives ill-treated their wives, and were lazy, so that the women usually laboured to support their families. Some of the Yakuts were very wealthy, owning as many as a thousand head of deer and cattle. Men, women and children alike dressed only in fur. They made their bread of a coarse flour, ground by hand.
There were about fifteen political exiles in Amga. Five of these were university graduates, and one of them was Prince Alexander Gutemurov, who had been arrested eight years before, and had turned grey in exile.
I was the first Russian woman to come to Amga, and the joy of the small colony of politicals knew no bounds. As the Yakut women never wash clothes, the filth in which the white men lived was unspeakable, and their unkempt appearance testified eloquently to the conditions in which they lived. They were at the mercy of vermin, and offered little resistance to epidemics. Clean food, drinkable milk, could not be had at any price. Money was cheap at Amga. The Prince, for instance, received a monthly allowance of one hundred roubles (about 10 guineas), but he could not get a bath for a thousand.
I immediately took charge of the situation, and the small cabin which I rented at two roubles a month soon became the social centre of the colony. I had benches made as well as a table and a bed. I obtained flour at the general shop owned by Kariakin, who had been exiled there for a murder in 1904, and now did a very flourishing trade. I baked real Russian bread, cooked a regular Russian meal, and made Russian tea, inviting all the politicals to dinner.
It was a feast fit for the Gods to them, and those of them who were single asked me to board them regularly. I not only boarded them, but I washed and repaired their clothes as well. I had a hut turned into a bath-house, and it was not long before the politicals looked human again. My duties in the house demanded all my time and energy, but I was happy in being able to give help. The men regarded me as their mother, and never tired of praising me.
I planted a garden, and sowed some grain, as land was given by the community for the asking, there being few settlers in spite of the natural riches of the district. The rivers in Northern Siberia are full of fish, and there is no end to the wealth of timber. Less than 150 miles from us gold mines were being worked. On the strength of our having owned the butcher’s shop in Yakutsk we were able to buy a horse on credit and also to borrow some money.
My popularity with the politicals irritated Yasha. He grew jealous of their kindness, now suspecting one man of courting me and now another. As he had nothing to do, he nursed his jealousies till they grew in his imagination. He took to playing cards, which is very popular with the Yakuts, who like to gamble. This led gradually to his becoming a confirmed gambler. He would leave home for some neighbouring Yakut settlement and frequently stay away for several days, spending all his time in gambling. Finally it became a habit with him. He would disappear, and reappear suddenly, only in different moods.