It is singular to remark a circumstance that clearly shows the fetishism with which the Emperor’s person is surrounded; these assassins at the gaol look down on their comrades from Poland with the utmost disdain, and often refrain from speaking to them, under the pretext that the crime of the Poles was rebellion against the Czar. The Russian assassins have therefore, it seems, a kind of conscience when it involves a question of conspiracy.
The Polish exiles I saw here were submitted, for five years, to the same treatment as the other convicts. They were numbered in red on the back, and for a mere trifle were punished with the strait-jacket, or twenty strokes with the rod. During five years, they passed the winter in this prison I have mentioned, sixty or eighty thrown together into this horrible chamber without air and almost without light, and the summer in working at the mines with an hour’s rest during the day and a nourishment barely sufficient.
Their lot, happily, is now much better: except the liberty of going beyond the limits of a certain assigned district, they enjoy the same advantages as other Russian subjects. They constitute, besides, at Irkutsk, it must be admitted, the most intelligent part of the population; and receiving no assistance from the Government, they gain not only their living, but sometimes even a fortune. They are medical practitioners, professors, musicians, or theatrical performers. Some even, who in Poland formed a part of the aristocracy, have taken to opening shops, where they sell all kinds of objects from Moscow, St. Petersburg, or Warsaw, articles which, brought from such a distance, fetch a high price and reward their sellers with a considerable income. One among these enjoying the title of count, and for this reason unwilling to follow from the beginning the general example, was, at the time of my visit, reduced to the humble occupation of cabdriver.
Among the exiles I saw at Irkutsk, I will mention, in particular, M. Schlenker, because I met at his house certain persons already introduced to the reader. This gentleman was occupied during the day in selling linen, cloth, pâtés de foies gras, wines, in short the usual wares of a bazaar, and in the evening, after the hours of business, forgot all his affairs to become in his salon a perfect man of the world, such as he had formerly been in Poland. He took in the Revue des Deux Mondes, many French and Russian periodicals, played the piano, and had ingratiated himself with the military governor, with whom he often went hunting; he was, in fact, a man very well informed, and, having seen and read a great deal, could speak in the most interesting manner on many subjects.
To remember the date of any occurrence, it was calculated from the year of his condemnation to hard labour. Nothing seemed so odd and sad at the same time as to hear this distinguished man say calmly: “I am sure that such a thing took place at such a time, because I know it was so many months after I was thrown into gaol.”
And yet, fully alive to all these severities, I must abstain from recriminating too readily: in the first place, because I learnt on my arrival in China that fresh liberties had been accorded to the Poles in Siberia; and next, because chastisements undoubtedly severe have probably preserved Russia from great evils and the necessity of making the punishment still heavier if a more lenient one had been found insufficient. We must not be blind to the fact that the Poles are not always patriots, and when they demand liberty, it is not always on the side of law and order. How many Poles were there not mixed up in our Commune of 1871, and how many other lawless adventurers shut themselves up in Carthagena with the last Spanish insurgents! Russia, that has these smouldering embers of insurrection on its hearth, has been more fortunate than France in preventing them from bursting into a consuming conflagration. But I cannot help pitying their sufferings, and especially the sufferings of those who, with all their faults, possessed in the highest degree the noblest of God’s gifts—an intelligent head obeying the dictates of a tender heart.
Having been invited to dine one day at M. Schlenker’s, I met there, to my great delight, the whole of the little caravan with whom I had made my entry into Siberia. Mrs. Grant, Miss Campbell, M. Pfaffius, Madame Nemptchinof and her son Ivan Michäelovitch, had just arrived at Irkutsk, and were about to start again for Kiachta. Constantine was also among the guests, as well as a young Russian, M. Isembech, an intimate friend of M. Schlenker, who was a complete personification of those travellers in perpetual movement of whom I have spoken.
“You are going to Japan,” he remarked, “and I hope to have the pleasure of meeting you again there, for I am going there shortly.” “Come with me,” I said; “the pleasure of the trip will be doubled.” “That will be impossible: I must go to-morrow to the Amoor river, and shall not have returned before a fortnight.” “I intend to remain longer than that here, and shall have no trouble in waiting for you.” “But before going to Japan, I must go to St. Petersburg for a fortnight.” “Then we shall see each other no more.” “Why not?” “How long then do you take to go to St. Petersburg?” “Twenty-three days and twenty-three nights.” “And you do not stop on the way?” “Four hours at Omsk only, in order to transact some business with the governor-general. In two months to the day, I shall be here again; it will be the time of the breaking up of the Amoor, and then it will take hardly a month to get to Japan; I shall therefore want three months to accomplish the whole, and will meet you on the 25th of June at the Hôtel d’Orient in Yokohama.”
This hardy mercurial traveller had little else than his winged feet, for the whole of his luggage consisted of some linen and a black dress coat.
The black coat, in fact, is here, even in the morning, the costume de rigueur: from ten in the morning to noon, the residents pay and receive visits; at half-past two they dine, always in formal dress; in the evening, at the theatre and supper, the same coat, and one is obliged to retain the whole day this inconvenient garment.