I think I have guessed the real reason for your silence. You were too lazy to go to the police-office, or if you did go once, you took the first “No” for an answer — given you, probably, by some functionary or other who knew nothing rightly about the matter. Well, you have caused me a great deal of selfish anxiety, for I thought: If he won’t take any trouble about a letter, he certainly won’t either about more important things! Write and answer me as quickly as possible; write, without awaiting an opportunity, officially, and be as explicit and detailed as you possibly can. I am like a slice cut from a loaf nowadays; I long to grow back again, but can’t. Les absents ont toujours tort. Is that saying to come true of us two? But be easy in your mind: I trust you.
It is a week now since I left the prison. I am sending this letter in the strictest secrecy; say not a syllable about it to anyone. I shall send you an official one too, through the staff of the Siberian Army Corps. Answer the official one instantly, but this — on the first suitable occasion. You must, though, write very circumstantially in the official letter of what you have been doing during these four years. For my part I should like to be sending you volumes. But as my time scarcely suffices for even this sheet, I shall tell you only the most important thing.
What is the most important? What was the most important to me in the recent past? When I reflect, I see that even to tell that, this sheet is far too small. How can I impart to you what is now in my mind — the things I thought, the things I did, the convictions I acquired, the conclusions I came to? I cannot even attempt the task. It is absolutely impracticable. I don’t like to leave a piece of work half done; to say only a part is to say nothing. At any rate, you now have my detailed report in your hands: read it, and get from it what you will.
It is my duty to tell you all, and so I will begin with my recollections. Do you remember how we parted from one another, my dear beloved fellow? You had scarcely left me when we three, Dourov, Yastrchembsky, and I, were led out to have the irons put on. Precisely at midnight on that Christmas Eve (1849), did chains touch me for the first time. They weigh about ten pounds, and make walking extraordinarily difficult.
Then we were put into open sledges, each alone with a gendarme, and so, in four sledges — the orderly opening the procession — we left Petersburg. I was heavy-hearted, and the many different impressions filled me with confused and uncertain sensations. My heart beat with a peculiar flutter, and that numbed its pain. Still, the fresh air was reviving in its effect, and, since it is usual before all new experiences to be aware of a curious vivacity and eagerness, so I was at the bottom quite tranquil. I looked attentively at all the festively-lit houses of Petersburg, and said good-bye to each.
They drove us past your abode, and at Krayevsky’s the windows were brilliantly lit. You had told me that he was giving a Christmas party and tree, and that your children were going to it, with Emilie Fyodorovna; I did feel dreadfully sad as we passed that house.
I took leave, as it were, of the little ones. I felt so lonely for them, and even years afterwards I often thought of them with tears in my eyes. We were driven beyond Yaroslavl; after three or four stations we stopped, in the first grey of morning, at Schlüsselburg, and went into an inn. There we drank tea with as much avidity as if we had not touched anything for a week. After the eight months’ captivity, sixty versts in a sledge gave us appetites of which, even to-day, I think with pleasure.
I was in a good temper, Dourov chattered incessantly, and Yastrchembsky expressed unwonted apprehensions for the future. We all laid ourselves out to become better acquainted with our orderly. He was a good old man, very friendly inclined towards us; a man who has seen a lot of life; he had travelled all over Europe with despatches. On the way he showed us many kindnesses. His name was Kusma Prokofyevitch Prokofyev. Among other things he let us have a covered sledge, which was very welcome, for the frost was fearful.
The second day was a holiday; the drivers, who were changed at the various stations, wore cloaks of grey German cloth with bright red belts: in the village-streets there was not a soul to be seen. It was a splendid winter-day. They drove us through the remote parts of the Petersburg, Novgorod, and Yaroslavl Governments. There’ were quite insignificant little towns, at great distances from one another.
But as we were passing through on a holiday, there was always plenty to eat and drink. We drove — drove terribly. We were warmly dressed, it is true, but we had to sit for ten hours at a time in the sledges, halting at only five or six stations: it was almost unendurable. I froze to the marrow, and could scarcely thaw myself in the warm rooms at the stations. Strange to say, the journey completely restored me to health. Near Perm, we had a frost of forty degrees during some of the nights. I don’t recommend that to you. It was highly disagreeable. Mournful was the moment when we crossed the Ural. The horses and sledges sank deep in the snow.
A snow-storm was raging. We got out of the sledges — it was night — and waited, standing, till they were extricated. All about us whirled the snow-storm. We were standing on the confines of Europe and Asia; before us lay Siberia and the mysterious future — behind us, our whole past; it was very melancholy. Tears came to my eyes. On the way, the peasants would stream out of all the villages to see us; and although we were fettered, prices were tripled to us at all the stations. Kusma Prokofyevitch took half our expenses on himself, though we tried hard to prevent him; in this way each of us, during the whole journey, spent only fifteen roubles.
On January 12 (1850) we came to Tobolsk. After we had been paraded before the authorities, and searched, in which proceeding all our money was taken from us, myself, Dourov, and Yastrchembsky were taken into one cell; the others, Spyechnyov, etc., who had arrived before us, were in another section, and during the whole time we hardly once saw each other. I should like to tell you more of our six days’ stay in Tobolsk, and of the impressions it made upon me. But I haven’t room here. I will only tell you that the great compassion and sympathy which was shown us there, made up to us, like a big piece of happiness, for all that had gone before.
The prisoners of former days (These were the participators in the coup d’étal of December 14, 1825 (“Decembrists”), who had been banished to Siberia.) (and still more their wives) cared for us as if they had been our kith and kin. Those noble souls, tested by five-and-twenty years of suffering and self-sacrifice! We saw them but seldom, for we were very strictly guarded; still, they sent us clothes and provisions, they comforted and encouraged us. I had brought far too few clothes, and had bitterly repented it, but they sent me clothes. Finally we left Tobolsk, and reached Omsk in three days.
While I was in Tobolsk, I gathered information about my future superiors. They told me that the Commandant was a very decent fellow, but that the Major, Krivzov, was an uncommon brute, a petty tyrant, a drunkard, a trickster — in short, the greatest horror that can be imagined. From the very beginning, he called both Dourov and me blockheads, and vowed to chastise us bodily at the first transgression.
He had already held his position for two years, and done the most hideous and unsanctioned things; two years later, he was court-martialled for them. So God protected me from him. He used to come to us mad drunk (I never once saw him sober), and would seek out some inoffensive prisoner and flog him on the pretext that he — the prisoner — was drunk. Often he came at night and punished at random — say, because such and such an one was sleeping on his left side instead of his right, or because he talked or moaned in his sleep — in fact, anything that occurred to his drunken mind. I should have had to break out in the long run against such a man as that, and it was he who wrote the monthly reports of us to Petersburg.
I had made acquaintance with convicts in Tobolsk; at Omsk I settled myself down to live four years in common with them. They are rough, angry, embittered men. Their hatred for the nobility is boundless; they regard all of us who belong to it with hostility and enmity. They would have devoured us if they only could. Judge then for yourself in ‘-hat danger we stood, having to cohabit with these people for some years, eat with them, sleep by them, and with no possibility of complaining of the affronts which
