THE FOREST—UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPTS AT ESCAPE—THE PEOPLE WE MET—THE CRIMINAL WORLD—THE CONVOY OFFICERS
Our journey was for the most part accomplished during the Siberian summer. The forest, through which the highway runs for thousands of versts, is then in fullest beauty; and from the many different species of trees is wafted an indescribably delicious perfume. Countless birds flit among the branches, and fill the air with song. Life seems everywhere the more ebullient for its long winter sleep, and throughout all nature the tide of energy is at its highest. A riot of joy was visible everywhere, and we alone seemed to strike a discordant note, as we wandered on towards the prison that awaited us. Yet even we felt born anew; our open-air life worked wonders, following on our long imprisonment. Many who had left Moscow weak and ill became robust in health during the journey.
The Moscow high-road is, as I have said, the only means of transit, nevertheless it is kept in an incredibly bad condition. It has never been properly made, and during the damp weather of early spring, or after a downpour in summer, vehicles are often axle-deep in mud. Along the road, at intervals of fifteen to twenty versts, there are villages, or sometimes small towns. To the north and south no traces of human dwellings are to be found; the eternal forest extends for thousands of versts, and only a 170few nomad tribes of half-savage hunters or herdsmen roam through its depths. Whilst our party rested, or even during the march, we “politicals” would often leave the road, and accompanied by a guard would dive into the woods to gather flowers and berries. A strange feeling would steal over one. A dozen steps into the thicket, and one is absolutely alone, not a soul to be seen. One dreams of being free and one’s own master; but the rattle of fetters, or the glitter of a bayonet brings back grim reality, and soon we are recalled by the soldiers, for the party must not be kept waiting.
The officers make no difficulty about these little excursions, although they are forbidden by the regulations. At first this surprised me; but I soon saw it was simply because everyone was convinced that escape was quite impracticable. For although at first sight it may appear an easy thing to hide in the undergrowth and get away, as a matter of fact very few “politicals” have ever even attempted it, and only one—Dzvonkyèvitch—when actually on the march. He had been condemned to penal servitude for life, and ran away from his escort into the forest; but the soldiers caught and frightfully maltreated him. If the officers had not come up he would have been murdered out of hand. He was taken half dead to the hospital in Krasnoyarsk, where—thanks to his strong constitution—he recovered from his severe wounds, though he will bear traces of them for the rest of his life. This had taken place just a year before our arrival at Krasnoyarsk.
Several attempts have also been made to escape from the halting-stations, but with no greater success. It must be remembered that Siberia is so sparsely populated that every traveller on the road is an object of universal attention, and the authorities are therefore soon made aware of the whereabouts of a runaway, if he be a “political” whom they are anxious to capture. Besides, the fugitives are often forced to come in of themselves. They do not know the paths through the forest, so 171familiar to the ordinary criminals, but wander helplessly about, and are thankful at last if they chance to hit the high-road once more, and—half famished—seek the nearest village. In such cases the peasants are eager to assist the authorities and thereby earn a reward; and as soon as they discover a political runaway they unfailingly deliver him up to the police.
AN ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE
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Up to the present time the Russian Government has been amply justified in regarding Siberia as one vast prison, whose natural conditions offer more insuperable obstacles to escape than do iron bars, high walls, or any number of guards. But this is only to the “politicals,” to whom the forest ways are strange. The criminals, as I have said, are quite at home in the wild woods; and it is easily conceivable that to many of us the thought has occurred of making common cause with these people, and escaping in their company. Such attempts, however, have more than once had a fatal ending. The rascals are always ready to murder for the sake of gain; a “political’s” money, and even his clothes, are quite sufficient bait. In this manner it is supposed that Ladislas Isbitsky came by his death in the year 1880. He had successfully negotiated a “swop,” had escaped as an ordinary criminal—and then disappeared for ever, probably murdered by the tramps to whose guidance he had entrusted himself.
Another instance of this kind was related to me by a political exile, who, when himself a fugitive in company with some convict-tramps, chanced to overhear them planning to murder him in his sleep. For weeks he was obliged to feign sleep at night while really remaining awake—a terrible task, as may readily be imagined.
These criminals do not, indeed, even trust one another when on the road; and it is said that when two of them have to enter a narrow path, there will be a sharp dispute as to who is to go first, the one in front never feeling safe from an attack in the rear by the companion of his march.
172Other dangers also lie in wait for the wanderer. Our comrade Vlastòpoulo, sentenced to penal servitude for life, narrowly escaped being devoured by a bear, during his flight in company with Kòziriov (another revolutionist condemned to penal servitude). He described to me how the bear came so suddenly upon them that they had no time to fly, and could only back against a tree, supposing their last hour had come. Bruin, however, must have had a full meal, for he trotted quietly by, apparently without noticing them! These two fugitives suffered terribly from hunger and thirst during their wanderings through the woods.
Although we had had no personal experience of these various dangers, most of us were so well aware of them that no plan of escape during the journey entered into our calculations; but two of our comrades could not resist the temptation to weave schemes of the kind. These were Maria Kalyùshnaya and the student Yordan—the former condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude, and the latter “administratively” exiled to Eastern Siberia for five years. They were both young, barely twenty, and their longing for freedom was overpowering. None of their projects of flight were practicable, however, and they did not attempt to carry them into execution. Both these young creatures died in prison; Maria Kalyùshnaya’s story, which I shall have to relate further on, being a specially sad one.
We had many opportunities, during our long march, of becoming acquainted with the people whose dwellings are beside the great highway. A certain air of comfort and well-being was often visible about them, and some of the larger settlements had the pleasant appearance of a Russian provincial town. Roomy, well-built houses, occasionally of more than one story, decorated with carving and provided with tidy hedges and gates, lined the road sometimes for several versts. Curtains and flower-pots showed in the windows; the rooms were often carpeted and furnished comfortably, sometimes even exhibiting 173the luxury of Austrian bentwood furniture. The cattle, so far as we could see, were finer and better kept than is usual among the Russian peasantry.
This well-to-do appearance was only in part to be ascribed to the productiveness of the husbandry in these regions. Trade and the conduct of traffic were the principal resources of the inhabitants; for this road was the only means of communication by land between Europe and the northern parts of Asia. Caravans in lengthy processions, sometimes in such numbers that the road was practically blocked, travelled along the great highway; and the country people found employment in the transport of both goods and passengers. The regular posting-stations were often unequal to the demands made upon them, and travellers—merchants especially—were obliged to hire private vehicles and pay dearly for them. Besides these legitimate industries, the inhabitants had another extremely lucrative source of gain. Many villages had won for themselves an evil name in this connection, and were known as “thieves’ towns,” because no caravan ever passed through them without paying toll of its wares; sometimes a chest of tea would be stolen, sometimes a horse, and so on. It was asserted that in some of these places the inhabitants made raids on travellers by night, and lived by highway robbery. It is characteristic of the country that this reputation lowered no man in public estimation. Anyone was received in “good society” if he were rich, no matter whether he were well known to have robberies by the score upon his conscience; he might, indeed, even be asked to fill the most honourable offices—such as churchwarden, mayor, or head of the commune. Later, when I was living in a Siberian town as an exile released from prison under police surveillance, I was frequently told by trustworthy persons, with every detail, how such and such a citizen, universally respected and esteemed, had made his fortune by cheating and robbery, or even by downright murder. There were numbers of people whose past 174could not bear inspection; and many of them, even after becoming possessed of wealth in superfluity, could not quite give up their old practices. It so fell out, for example, at the end of the eighties, that General Barabash the military governor of Tchita (the capital of the Transbaikalian Government), gave a banquet, to which all the notabilities of the place were invited, and that the highly respectable merchant and mayor Alexèiev broke off in the middle of the feasting and went straight from table to waylay the passing night-mail. This worthy citizen, with one of his friends, galloped after the mail-coach, murdered the driver, seriously wounded the guard, seized the bag containing the registered letters, and made off. The guard, however, whom they had left for dead, was rescued; and as an unusually energetic magistrate took the matter in hand, the whole story came out, and could not be hushed up in the customary manner. The case was brought before a court-martial, and the highway robbers were condemned to death.
These colonies by the great road had had very diverse origins, and were sharply differentiated from each other in character. There were more or less pure Russian villages, neighboured by barbaric Buriat settlements; and there were also villages inhabited exclusively by members of various sects, exiled from Russia and forcibly established there as a punishment for their daring to fall away from the Orthodox State religion. Those that I found specially interesting were the villages of the so-called Subòtniki (Sabbatarians). The members of this sect are Russian by nationality, yet their religion is the Mosaic in its strictest form.
It was curious in the extreme to find these typical representatives of the Slav race considering themselves Jews by virtue of their religion, and still stranger to hear them boasting of the prerogatives of their Israelitish faith. In their manner of life and occupations they differ in no way from ordinary Russian peasants; although in 175decency and prosperity their villages are far above those of their Christian neighbours.
Those of our criminal contingent who had travelled this way more than once already were well acquainted with the manners and customs of the Siberian people; many of them were veritable mines of information, and could relate tales of uncommon interest. In their narrations the Siberians usually figured in an unfavourable light; for the criminals hate them from the bottom of their hearts, and ascribe all kinds of evil qualities to them, being, one and all, firmly persuaded that although their own standard of conduct is by no means exalted, they are infinitely higher in the moral scale than the Siberians.
“Heaven knows we are rascals through and through, good-for-nothings, and all that; but that lot are far and away worse,” was their dictum. They showered on the Siberians all sorts of contemptuous names, which were quite incomprehensible to us, but seemed to provoke their recipients terribly. This mutual antipathy probably arose from the fact of the parties knowing one another only too well, and from the injuries inflicted by each on the other during past generations.
We came into such close contact with the world of crime during our travels that we could soon recognise what Lombroso calls “the criminal type.” On the whole, the criminals made a more favourable impression on me than I had expected. Certainly there was much about them unpleasant, and even repulsive; but this was, I think, less due to their character as a class than to the special influence of the “Ivans”—a quite peculiar type, who imparted their tone more or less to all the others. With the exception of these leaders, and of a small number of the worst criminals, who had not succeeded in “swopping,” the majority consisted of very average men of the working class, with the good and bad qualities of their order. Their leading characteristics were dumb acquiescence in their lot and a shy dread of anyone who would attempt to better it.
176They were for the most part just as good-natured and ready to help one another as is commonly the case with workers of the lower classes. Among the ordinary prisoners, too, were to be found many individuals who could in no sense be ranked as criminals. Russian village communes have the power of rejecting from their midst members whom they consider undesirable; and these outcasts can then be sent to settle in Siberia, without any judicial sentence, but simply by the desire of a majority in their commune. Moreover, this verdict of the commune is often delivered without any real majority being convinced as to the unfitness of the offending member; the clerk to the commune and two or three of the richer peasants and usurers (Kulaki) can easily manage to get rid of a poor wretch who ............