This city is about as large as Salem in Massachusetts, and consists of a fort and citadel, with numerous dwellings around them, on a hill, and another portion on the low ground, bordering on the river Obi. The people, as I have said before, are chiefly exiles, or their descendants; and as it has been said that tyranny never banishes fools, so the society embraces many persons of talent and merit. Some of them, indeed, were celebrated for their genius, and numbers of them were of high rank and character. But what must a city of exiles be?—composed of people who have been separated from their native land—from their homes, their relatives—from all they held most dear; and that, too, with little hope of return or restoration to their former enjoyments? Most of them, also, are stripped of their property, and if they possessed wealth and independence before, they come here to drag out a life of poverty, perhaps of destitution.
Such was in fact the condition of Pultova. He was, in Warsaw, a merchant of great wealth and respectability. When his countrymen rose in their resistance, he received a military commission, and distinguished himself alike by his wisdom and bravery. In the fierce battles that raged around the walls of the city before its fall, he seemed almost too reckless of life, and in several instances hewed his way, at the head of his followers, into the very bosom of the Russian camp. He became an object of admiration to his countrymen, and of equal hatred to the Russians. When Warsaw fell, his punishment was proportioned to the magnitude of his offence. He was entirely stripped of his estates, and perpetual banishment was his sentence.
It is not easy to conceive of a situation more deplorable than his, at Tobolsk. The friends that he had there, like himself, were generally oppressed with poverty. Some shunned him, for fear of drawing down the vengeance of the government; for the chief officer of the citadel was of course a spy, who kept a vigilant watch over the people: and there are few persons, reduced to servitude and poverty, who do not learn to cower beneath the suspicious eye of authority. What could Pultova do? Here was no scope for his mercantile talents, even if he had the means of giving them exercise. His principles would not allow him to join the bands of men, who, driven to desperation by their hard fate, took to the highway, and plundered those whom they could master. Nor could he, like too many of his fellow-sufferers, drown his senses in drunkenness. Could he go to the mines, and in deep pits, away from the light of heaven, work for three or four cents a day, and that too in companionship with convicts and criminals of the lowest and most debased character? Could he go forth to the fields and labor for his subsistence, where the wages of a man trained to toil, were hardly sufficient for subsistence?
These were the questions which the poor exile had occasion to revolve in his mind; and after his son and daughter joined him, and the few dollars he had brought with him were nearly exhausted, it became necessary that he should decide upon some course of action. Nor were these considerations those alone which occupied his mind. He had also to reflect upon the degradation of his country—the ruin of those hopes of liberty which had been indulged—the wreck of his personal fortunes—and the exchange, in his own case, of independence for poverty.
It requires a stout heart to bear up against such misfortunes, and at the same time to support the heavy burden which is added in that bitter sense of wrong and injustice, which comes again and again, under such circumstances, to ask for revenge or retribution. But Pultova was not only a man of energy in the field—he was something better—a man of that moral courage which enabled him to contend against weakness of heart in the hour of trouble. I shall best make you understand his feelings and character by telling you how he spoke to his children, a few weeks after their arrival.
“My dear Alexis,” said he, “you complain for want of books, that you may pursue your studies and occupy your mind: how can we get books in Siberia, and that without money? You are uneasy for want of something to do—some amusement or occupation;—think, my boy, how many of our countrymen are at this very hour in dungeons, their limbs restrained by chains, and not only denied books and amusement, but friends, the pure air, nay the very light of heaven! Think how many a noble Polish heart is now beating and fluttering, like a caged eagle, against the gratings that confine it—how many a hero, who seemed destined to fill the world with his glorious deeds, is now in solitude, alone, emaciated, buried from the world’s view, and lost to all existence, save that he still feels, suffers, despairs—and all this without a friend who may share his sorrow! How long and weary is a single day to you, Alexis; think how tedious the hours to the prisoner in the prolonged night of the dungeon!”
“Dear father,” said Alexis; “this is dreadful—but how can it help our condition? It only shows us that there is deeper sorrow than ours.”
“Yes, Alexis; and from this contrast we may derive consolation. Whether it be rational or not, still, by contemplating these deeper sorrows of our fellow-men, and especially of our fellow-countrymen, we may alleviate our own. But let me suggest another subject for contemplation: what are we to do for food, Alexis? My money is entirely gone except five dollars, and this can last for only a few weeks.”
“Why, father, I can do something, surely.”
“Well, what can you do?”