Bad—we were told—very bad it was out there, but in what way bad it was impossible to judge, even from the knowledge we had of life in less remote regions. Who would venture to draw conclusions from the little we knew as to the thousand small details which made up that grey, monotonous existence? Who could clearly bring them before the imagination? Only experience could reveal them in their appalling nakedness. Of one thing we were certain, that was that in a measure as the populousness decreases, and you move away in a centrifugal direction from where we were, life becomes harder and more and more distressing for human beings. In the south, on the wild high plateaus of the Aldon; in the east, on the mountain slopes of the Stanovoi-Chebret, where a single Tungus family constitutes the sole population along a river of 300 versts; in the west on the desolate heights of the Viluj, near the great Zeresej Lake; in the north at the mysterious outlets of the Quabrera, the desert places of the Olensk, Indigirika, and Kolyma, life becomes like a Danteësque hell, consisting in nothing but ice, snow and gales, and lighted up by the lurid blood-red rays of the northern light.
But no! those deserts, equal in extent to the half of Europe, are only the purgatory, not yet the real Siberian hell. You still find woods there, poor, thin, dwarfed woods, it is true, but where there is wood there is fire and vitality. The true hell of human torture begins beyond the line of the woods; then there is nothing but ice and snow; ice that does not even melt in the plains in summer—and in the midst of that icy desert, miserable human beings thrown upon this shore by an alien fate.
I shall never forget the impression which any chance bit of information on the characteristic features, the horrible details of that life, used to make upon me. Even clearly defined facts and exact technical terms bear quite a different aspect in the light of such unusual local conditions.
I have a vivid remembrance of a story told me by a former official; he described to me how when he was stationed in V. as Ispravnik, 'a certain gentleman' was sent out to him with orders to take him to the settlement in Zaszyversk.[1]
[Footnote 1: Pronounce: Zashiversk.]
'You see, little brother,' said the ex-Ispravnik, 'the town of Zaszyversk does exist. Even on a small map of Siberia you can easily find it to the right of a large blank space; if you remember your geography lessons you will even know that it is designated as "town out of governmental bounds". An appointment to such a place means for an official that he is expected to send in his resignation; as for the towns, it means that they have been degraded by having ceased to be the seat of certain local government. In this case there was a yet deeper significance in the description, for the town of Zaszyversk does, as I said, exist, but only in the imagination of cartographers and in geography manuals, not in reality. So much so is it non-existent that not a single house, not a yurta,[1] not a hovel marks the place which is pointed out to you on the map. When I read the order I could not believe my eyes, and though I was sober I reeled. I called another official and showed him the curious document.
[Footnote 1: Yurta: hut of the native Yakut.]
'He was an old, experienced hand at the office, but when he saw this order, the paper dropped from his hands. "Where to?" I asked. "To Zaszyversk!" We looked at each other. Nice things that young man must have been up to! There he stood, looked and listened and understood nothing.
'He was a handsome fellow but gloomy and stuck up. I asked him one thing after another, was he in need of anything? and so on, but he answered nothing but "Yes" or "No". Well, my little brother, I thought to myself, you will soon sing a different tune! I ordered three troikas to be brought round; he was put into the first with the Cossack who escorted him, I was in the second with an old Cossack, who remembered where this town of Zaszyversk had once stood, and the third contained provisions; then we started. First we drove straight on for twenty-four hours; during this time we still stopped at stations where we changed horses, and we covered 200 versts. The second and third days we covered 150 versts, but we did not meet a living soul, and we spent the nights in the large barnlike buildings without windows or chimneys and with only a fireplace, which are found on the road; they are called "povarnia".
'Our prisoner was obviously beginning to feel rather bad, so he addressed me from time to time; at last he tried to get information out of me concerning the life in Zaszyversk. "How many inhabitants were there? what was the town like? was there any chance of his finding something to do there, perhaps private lessons?" But now it was my turn to answer him: "Yes" or "No". On the fourth day, towards morning, we entered upon a glacier. We had arrived in the region where the ice does not disappear even in summer. When we had advanced ten versts on the ice, the old Cossack showed me the place where sixty years ago a few yurtas had stood which were called in geographical terms "Zaszyversk, town out of governmental bounds".