Were not these strange meetings? Carried away in my kibitka towards the land from which no man returns, a convict on his way to work out his bitter sentence, I yet saw many shapes of misfortune worse than my own. I could see faces of men in such gangs as I have described, who, looking into mine, counted me as happy. Nay, I could say to myself, I too had only escaped this, the last and lowest stage of misery and shame, by means of the privilege which attached to my birth—a privilege which my own convictions disallowed, but which the Tzar himself maintained. Compared with the lot of this herd of the lost my state certainly was more endurable. I was sure to arrive soon, only too soon, at the place for which I was bound; I was not rivetted to any parricide, or to a malefactor, and my hands at least were free. The tight rings of my fetters alone caused me any suffering, and now I almost blushed to speak of them; but the pain was really great, and by dint of entreaties I prevailed on the soldiers to have the luckless rings let out at one of the halting places, which after all was only in accordance with the orders they had received at Kiow. At first, these guardians of mine had obstinately refused to meet any of my attempts at conversation with them, replying that they were forbidden to address me. However, I kept up with them, and I ended in humanising them. We soon talked freely, and drank together some glasses of that Russian brandy of which I was learning to appreciate the salutary and strengthening qualities. Neither of the men seemed to be bad-hearted in any way, and they were more distressed than pleased by the business in hand. One day, when, from sufferings of mind and bodily fatigue I fell sick, and was lying down at one of the posting-houses, I overheard the following conversation between them:
‘Well, we are very unlucky: if we do not arrive at Omsk on the day appointed, we shall be beaten with rods; and if we hurry him too much, and he dies of it, we shall be beaten all the same; we are in very bad luck!’
They were continually haunted by the fear of my dying or committing suicide. When we had a river to cross, they sat by me in the boat, and held me by both arms, in case I should leap into the water; and at our meals they gave me meat cut into little squares, from which the bones had been carefully removed, and which I had to eat with a spoon.
Thus, without being positively cruel, these soldiers showed an astonishing indifference to my sad position. In the conversation, for instance, which I have just cited, it will be seen that they made an abstraction of me: I ceased to be a man, a creature of God, suffering in body and in misery of mind; I was only a dangerous charge, to be got rid of as quickly as possible; and the only thing they could find pity for was for themselves. But it was not in them alone that I had to remark a charity so nicely restricted, or such indifference to the pains of other men. At one of the places where we changed horses, the new postilion, a great rough fellow, came up to me and asked me:
‘Are you a Pole? How many kibitkas are following you, then?’
‘None.’
‘What! none? As soon as you see a kibitka with a Pole, one may always bet that there will be no end to them; these Poles must be in swarms, and yet I can’t think how we are not come to the last of them by this time.’
At the same time I should be singularly ungrateful and unjust if I did not declare that such speeches as these were rare and exceptional, and that they stood out in contrast with the general manner of the country people towards me. These showed themselves full of compassion, and even of solicitude; and after entering Russia Proper, as I advanced by degrees into the interior, I never ceased to receive from them unequivocal marks of their sympathy and pity. How often was I not followed by travellers, especially by ladies, who pressed gifts of money on my acceptance! How often have I not seen at our halting places young girls stop and look at me with sadness, even with tearful eyes! One rich merchant, who was returning from the fair at Nijni-Novgorod, pressed upon me with real eagerness the sum of two hundred roubles, saying it was nothing for him to lose, and might be of the greatest use to me. If I always thought it right to refuse such presents, of which, moreover, I should have been doubtless deprived by the Russian authorities, I accepted without hesitation and with much gratitude the articles of food and drink brought to me on all sides by the inhabitants. It was rarely that the master of any posting-house failed to offer me either tea or brandy at the stations where we stopped; his wife or his daughters presented me with cakes, dried fish, or fruits, while the neighbours would hasten to do the same. At one of these stations, not far from Toula, I saw an official in a uniform arrive, and I was timidly offered by him a little parcel wrapped in a silk handkerchief. As he gave it me, he said, ‘Accept this from my patron saint.’ I could not make out his meaning; and as the sight of an uniform did not predispose me in his favour, I made a sign of refusing it.
‘You are a Pole,’ he said, colouring a little; ‘and you are not acquainted with our customs. This is my birthday, and on such a day it is our bounden duty to share our goods with those who are in adversity; accept this then I beseech you, in the name of my saint.’
I could not resist a petition so touching and so Christian in its spirit. The parcel contained bread, salt, and a few coins; the money I gave to the guards, and I broke bread with the official, who asked me: