# Siberia and the Exile System/Volume 1/Chapter VIII

Siberia and the Exile System Volume 2
CHAPTER VIII
OUR FIRST MEETING WITH POLITICAL EXILES
OUR first meeting with political exiles in Siberia was brought about by a fortunate accident, and, strangely enough, through the instrumentality of the Government. Among the many officers whose acquaintance we made in Semipalátinsk was an educated and intelligent gentleman named Pávlovski, who had long held an important position in the Russian service, and who was introduced to us as a man whose wide and accurate knowledge of Siberia, especially of the steppe territories, might render him valuable to us, both as an adviser and as a source of trustworthy information. Although Mr. Pávlovski impressed me from the first as a cultivated, humane, and liberal man, I naturally hesitated to apply to him for information concerning the political exiles. The advice given me in St. Petersburg had led me to believe that the Government would regard with disapprobation any attempt on the part of a foreign traveler to investigate a certain class of political questions or to form the acquaintance of a certain class of political offenders; and I expected, therefore, to have to make all such investigations and acquaintances stealthily and by underground methods. I was not at that time aware of the fact that Russian officials and political exiles are often secretly in sympathy, and it would never have occurred to me to seek the aid of the one class in making the acquaintance of the other. In all of my early conversations with Mr. Pávlovski, therefore, I studiously avoided ​the subject of political exile, and gave him, I think, no reason whatever to suppose that I knew anything about the Russian revolutionary movement, or felt any particular interest in the exiled revolutionists.
In the course of a talk one afternoon about America, Mr. Pávlovski, turning the conversation abruptly, said to me, "Mr. Kennan, have you ever paid any attention to the movement of young people into Siberia?"
I did not at first see the drift nor catch the significance of this inquiry, and replied, in a qualified negative, that I had not, but that perhaps I did not fully understand the meaning of his question.
"I mean," he said, "that large numbers of educated young men and women are now coming into Siberia from European Russia; I thought perhaps the movement might have attracted your attention."
The earnest, significant way in which he looked at me while making this remark, as if he were experimenting upon me or sounding me, led me to conjecture that the young people to whom he referred were the political exiles. I did not forget, however, that I was dealing with a Russian officer; and I replied guardedly that I had heard something about this movement, but knew nothing of it from personal observation.
"It seems to me," he said, looking at me with the same watchful intentness, "that it is a remarkable social phenomenon, and one that would naturally attract a foreign traveler's attention."
I replied that I was interested, of course, in all the social phenomena of Russia, and that I should undoubtedly feel a deep interest in the one to which he referred if I knew more about it.
"Some of the people who are now coming to Siberia," he continued, "are young men and women of high attainments—men with a university training and women of remarkable character."
​"Yes," I replied, "so I have heard; and I should think that they might perhaps be interesting people to know."
"They are," he assented. "They are men and women who, under other circumstances, might render valuable services to their country; I am surprised that you have not become interested in them."
In this manner Mr. Pávlovski and I continued to fence cautiously for five minutes, each trying to ascertain the views of the other, without fully disclosing his own views concerning the unnamed, but clearly understood, subject of political exile. Mr. Pávlovski's words and manner seemed to indicate that he himself regarded with great interest and respect the "young people now coming to Siberia"; but that he did not dare make a frank avowal of such sentiments until he should feel assured of my discretion, trustworthiness, and sympathy. I, on my side, was equally cautious, fearing that the uncalled-for introduction of this topic by a Russian official might be intended to entrap me into an admission that the investigation of political exile was the real object of our Siberian journey. The adoption of a quasi-friendly attitude by an officer of the Government towards the exiled enemies of that Government seemed to me an extraordinary and unprecedented phenomenon, and I naturally regarded it with some suspicion.
At last, tired of this conversational beating around the bush, I said frankly, "Mr. Pávlovski, are you talking about the political exiles? Are they the young people to whom you refer?"
"Yes," he replied; "I thought you understood. It seems to me that the banishment to Siberia of a large part of the youth of Russia is a phenomenon that deserves a traveler's attention."
"Of course," I said, "I am interested in it, but how am I to find out anything about it? I don't know where to look for political exiles, nor how to get acquainted with them; and I am told that the Government does not ​regard with favor intercourse between foreign travelers and politicals."
"Politicals are easy enough to find," rejoined Mr. Pávlovski. "The country is full of them, and [with a shrug of the shoulders] there is nothing, so far as I know, to prevent you from making their acquaintance if you feel so disposed. There are thirty or forty of them here in Semipalátinsk, and they walk about the streets like other people: why shouldn't you happen to meet them?"
Having once broken the ice of reserve and restraint, Mr. Pávlovski and I made rapid advances towards mutual confidence. I soon became convinced that he was not making a pretense of sympathy with the politicals in order to lead me into a trap; and he apparently became satisfied that I had judgment and tact enough not to get him into trouble by talking to other people about his opinions and actions. Then everything went smoothly. I told him frankly what my impressions were with regard to the character of nihilists generally, and asked him whether, as a matter of fact, they were not wrong-headed fanatics and wild social theorists, who would be likely to make trouble in any state.
"On the contrary," he replied, "I find them to be quiet, orderly, reasonable human beings. We certainly have no trouble with them here. Governor Tseklínski treats them with great kindness and consideration; and, so far as I know, they are good citizens."
In the course of further conversation, Mr. Pávlovski said that there were in Semipalátinsk, he believed, about forty political exiles, including four or five women. They had all been banished without judicial trial, upon mere executive orders, signed by the Minister of the Interior and approved by the Tsar. Their terms of exile varied from two to five years; and at the expiration of such terms, if their behavior meanwhile had been satisfactory to the local Siberian authorities, they would be permitted to return, at their own expense, to their homes. A few of them had found ​employment in Semipalátinsk and were supporting themselves; others received money from relatives or friends; and the remainder were supported—or rather kept from actual starvation—by a Government allowance, which amounted to six rubles ($3.00) a month for exiles belonging to the noble or privileged class, and two rubles and seventy kopéks ($1.35) a month for non-privileged exiles.
"Of course," said Mr. Pávlovski, "such sums are wholly inadequate for their support. Nine kopéks [four and a half cents] a day won't keep a man in bread, to say nothing of providing him with shelter; and if the more fortunate ones who get employment or receive money from their relatives did not help the others, there would be much more suffering than there is. Most of them are educated men and women, and Governor Tseklínski, who appreciates the hardships of their situation, allows them to give private lessons, although, according to the letter of the law, teaching is an occupation in which political exiles are forbidden to engage. Besides giving lessons, the women sew and embroider, and earn a little money in that way. They are allowed to write and receive letters, as well as to have unobjectionable books and periodicals; and although they are nominally under police surveillance, they enjoy a good deal of personal freedom."
"What is the nature of the crimes for which these young people were banished?" I inquired. "Were they conspirators? Did they take part in plots to assassinate the Tsar?"
"Oh, no!" said Mr. Pávlovski with a smile; "they were only neblagonadiozhni [untrustworthy]. Some of them belonged to forbidden societies, some imported or were in possession of forbidden books, some had friendly relations with other more dangerous offenders, and some were connected with disorders in the higher schools and the universities. The greater part of them are administrative exiles—that is, persons whom the Government, for various ​reasons, has thought it expedient to remove from their homes and put under police surveillance in a part of the empire where they can do no harm. The real conspirators and revolutionists—the men and women who have actually been engaged in criminal activity—are sent to more remote parts of Siberia and into penal servitude. Banishment to the steppe territories is regarded as a very light punishment; and, as a rule, only administrative exiles are sent here."
In reply to further questions with regard to the character of these political exiles, Mr. Pávlovski said, "I don't know anything to their discredit; they behave themselves well enough here. If you are really interested in them, I can, perhaps, help you to an acquaintance with some of them, and then you can draw your own conclusions as to their character."
Of course I assured Mr. Pávlovski that an introduction to the politicals would give me more pleasure than any other favor he could confer upon me. He thereupon suggested that we should go at once to see a young political exile named Lobonófski, who was engaged in painting a drop-curtain for the little town theater.
"He is something of an artist," said Mr. Pávlovski, "and has a few Siberian sketches. You are making and collecting such sketches: of course you want to see them."
"Certainly," I replied with acquiescent diplomacy. "Sketches are my hobby, and I am a connoisseur in drop-curtains. Even although the artist be a nihilist and an exile, I must see his pictures."
Mr. Pávlovski's dróshky was at the door, and we drove at once to the house where Mr. Lobonófski was at work.
I find it extremely difficult now, after a whole year of intimate association with political exiles, to recall the impressions that I had of them before I made the acquaintance of the exile colony in Semipalátinsk. I know that I was prejudiced against them, and that I expected them ​to be wholly unlike the rational, cultivated men and women whom one meets in civilized society; but I cannot, by any exercise of will, bring back the unreal, fantastic conception of them that I had when I crossed the Siberian frontier. As nearly as I can now remember, I regarded the people whom I called nihilists as sullen, and more or less incomprehensible "cranks," with some education, a great deal of fanatical courage, and a limitless capacity for self-sacrifice, but with the most visionary ideas of government and social organization, and with only the faintest trace of what an American would call "hard common-sense." I did not expect to have any more ideas in common with them than I should have in common with an anarchist like Louis Lingg; and although I intended to give their case against the Government a fair hearing, I believed that the result would be a confirmation of the judgment I had already formed. Even after all that Mr. Pávlovski had said to me, I think I more than half expected to find in the drop-curtain artist a long-haired, wild-eyed being who would pour forth an incoherent recital of wrongs and outrages, denounce all governmental restraint as brutal tyranny, and expect me to approve of the assassination of Alexander II.
The log house occupied by Mr. Lobonófski as a work-shop was not otherwise tenanted, and we entered it without announcement. As Mr. Pávlovski threw open the door, I saw, standing before a large square sheet of canvas which covered one whole side of the room, a blond young man, apparently about thirty years of age, dressed from head to foot in a suit of cool brown linen, holding in one hand an artist's brush, and in the other a plate or palette covered with freshly mixed colors. His strongly built figure was erect and well-proportioned; his bearing was that of a cultivated gentleman; and he made upon me, from the first, a pleasant and favorable impression. He seemed, in fact, to be an excellent specimen of the blond type of Russian ​young manhood. His eyes were clear and blue; his thick, light-brown hair was ill cut, and rumpled a little in a boyish way over the high forehead; the full blond beard gave manliness and dignity to his well-shaped head, and his frank, open, good-tempered face, flushed a little with heat and wet with perspiration, seemed to me to be the face of a warm-hearted and impulsive but, at the same time, strong and well-balanced man. It was, at any rate, a face strangely out of harmony with all my preconceived ideas of a nihilist.
Mr. Pávlovski introduced me to the young artist as an American traveler, who was interested in Siberian scenery, who had heard of his sketches, and who would like very much to see some of them. Mr. Lobonófski greeted me quietly but cordially, and at once brought out the sketches—apologizing, however, for their imperfections, and asking us to remember that they had been made in prison, on coarse writing-paper, and that the out-door views were limited to landscapes that could be seen from prison and étape windows. The sketches were evidently the work of an untrained hand, and were mostly representations of prison and étape interiors, portraits of political exiles, and such bits of towns and villages as could be seen from the windows of the various cells that the artist had occupied in the course of his journey to Siberia. They all had, however, a certain rude force and fidelity, and one of them served as material for the sketch illustrating the Tiumén prison-yard on page 85.
My conversation with Mr. Lobonófski at this interview did not touch political questions, and was confined, for the most part, to topics suggested by the sketches. He described his journey to Siberia just as he would have described it if he had made it voluntarily, and, but for an occasional reference to a prison or an étape, there was nothing in the recital to remind one that he was a nihilist and an exile. His manner was quiet, modest, and frank; he followed any conversational lead with ready tact, and although I watched ​him closely I could not detect the slightest indication of eccentricity or "crankiness." He must have felt conscious that I was secretly regarding him with critical curiosity,—looking at him, in fact, as one looks for the first time at an extraordinary type of criminal,—but he did not manifest the least awkwardness, embarrassment, or self-consciousness. He was simply a quiet, well-bred, self-possessed gentleman.
When we took our leave, after half an hour's conversation, Mr. Lobonófski cordially invited me to bring Mr. Frost to see him that evening at his house, and said that he would have a few of his friends there to meet us. I thanked him and promised that we would come.
"Well," said Mr. Pávlovski, as the door closed behind us, "what do you think of the political exile?"
"He makes a very favorable impression upon me," I replied. "Are they all like him?"
"No, not precisely like him; but they are not bad people. There is another interesting political in the city whom you ought to see—a young man named Leántief. He is employed in the office of Mr. Makovétski, a justice of the peace here, and is engaged with the latter in making anthropological researches among the Kírghis. I believe they are now collecting material for a monograph upon Kírghis customary law. Why should n't you call upon Mr. Makovétski? I have no doubt that he would introduce Mr. Leántief to you, and I am sure that you would find them both to be intelligent and cultivated men."
This seemed to me a good suggestion; and as soon as Mr. Pávlovski had left me I paid a visit to Mr. Makovétski, ostensibly for the purpose of asking permission to sketch some of the Kírghis implements and utensils in the town library, of which he was one of the directors. Mr. Makovétski seemed pleased to learn that I was interested in their little library, granted me permission to sketch the ​specimens of Kírghis handiwork there exhibited, and finally introduced me to his writing-clerk, Mr. Leántief, who, he said, had made a special study of the Kírghis, and could give me any desired information concerning the natives of that tribe.
Mr. Leántief was a good-looking young fellow, apparently about twenty-five years of age, rather below the medium height, with light-brown hair and beard, intelligent gray eyes, a slightly aquiline nose, and a firm, well-rounded chin. His head and face were suggestive of studious and scientific tastes, and if I had met him in Washington and had been asked to guess his profession from his appearance, I should have said that he was probably a young scientist connected with the United States Geological Survey, the Smithsonian Institution, or the National Museum. He was, as I subsequently learned, the son of an army officer who at one time commanded the Cossack garrison in this same city of Semipalátinsk. As a boy he was enrolled in the corps of imperial pages, and began his education in the large school established by the Government for the training of such pages in the Russian capital. At the age of eighteen or nineteen he entered the St. Petersburg University, and in the fourth year of his student life was arrested and exiled by "administrative process" to Western Siberia for five years, upon the charge of having had secret communication with political prisoners in the fortress of Petropávlovsk.
Although Mr. Leántief's bearing was somewhat more formal and reserved than that of Mr. Lobonófski, and his attitude toward me one of cool, observant criticism, rather than of friendly confidence, he impressed me very favorably; and when, after half an hour's conversation, I returned to my hotel, I was forced to admit to myself that if all nihilists were like the two whom I had met in Semipalátinsk, I should have to modify my opinions with regard to them. In point of intelligence and education Mr. Lobonófski and ​Mr. Leántief seemed to me to compare favorably with any young men of my acquaintance.
At eight o'clock that evening Mr. Frost and I knocked at Mr. Lobonófski's door, and were promptly admitted and cordially welcomed. We found him living in a small log house not far from our hotel. The apartment into which we were shown, and which served in the double capacity of sitting-room and bed-room, was very small—not larger, I think, than ten feet in width by fourteen feet in length. Its log walls and board ceiling were covered with dingy whitewash, and its floor of rough unmatched planks was bare. Against a rude, unpainted partition to the right of the door stood a small single bedstead of stained wood, covered with neat but rather scanty bed-clothing, and in the corner beyond it was a triangular table, upon which were lying, among other books, Herbert Spencer's "Essays: Moral, Political, and Esthetic," and the same author's "Principles of Psychology." The opposite corner of the room was occupied by a what-not, or étagère, of domestic manufacture, upon the shelves of which were a few more books, a well-filled herbarium, of coarse brown wrapping-paper, an opera-glass, and an English New Testament. Between two small deeply set windows opening into the court-yard stood a large, unpainted wooden table, without a cloth, upon which was lying, open, the book that Mr. Lobonófski had been reading when we entered—a French translation of Balfour Stewart's "Conservation of Energy." There was no other furniture in the apartment except three or four unpainted wooden chairs. Everything was scrupulously neat and clean; but the room looked like the home of a man too poor to afford anything more than the barest essentials of life.
After Mr. Lobonófski had made a few preliminary inquiries with regard to the object of our journey to Siberia, and had expressed the pleasure which he said it afforded him to meet and welcome Americans in his own house, he turned ​to me with a smile and said, "I suppose, Mr. Kennan, you have heard terrible stories in America about the Russian nihilists?"
"Yes," I replied; "we seldom hear of them except in connection with a plot to blow up something or to kill somebody, and I must confess that I have had a bad opinion of them. The very word 'nihilist' is understood in America to mean a person who does not believe in anything and who advocates the destruction of all existing institutions."
"'Nihilist' is an old nickname," he said; "and it is no longer applicable to the Russian revolutionary party, if, indeed, it was ever applicable. I don 't think you will find among the political exiles in Siberia any 'nihilists,' in the sense in which you use the word. Of course there are, in what may be called the anti-Government class, people who hold all sorts of political opinions. There are a few who believe in the so-called policy of 'terror'—who regard themselves as justified in resorting even to political assassination as a means of overthrowing the Government; but even the terrorists do not propose to destroy all existing institutions. Every one of them, I think, would lay down his arms, if the Tsar would grant to Russia a constitutional form of government and guarantee free speech, a free press, and freedom from arbitrary arrest, imprisonment, and exile. Have you ever seen the letter sent by the Russian revolutionists to Alexander III. upon his accession to the throne?"
"No," I replied; "I have heard of it, but have never seen it."
"It sets forth," he said, "the aims and objects of the revolutionary party, and contains a distinct promise that if the Tsar will grant freedom of speech and summon a national assembly the revolutionists will abstain from all further violence, and will agree not to oppose any form of government which such assembly may sanction. You can hardly say that people who express a willingness to enter ​into such an agreement as this are in favor of the destruction of all existing institutions. I suppose you know," he continued, "that when your President Garfield was assassinated, the columns of 'The Will of the People' [the organ of the Russian revolutionists in Geneva] were bordered with black as a token of grief and sympathy, and that the paper contained an eloquent editorial condemning political assassination as wholly unjustifiable in a country where there are open courts and a free press, and where the officers of the government are chosen by a free vote of the people?"
"No," I replied; "I was not aware of it."
"It is true," he rejoined. "Of course at that time Garfield's murder was regarded as a political crime, and as such it was condemned in Russia, even by the most extreme terrorists."
Our conversation was interrupted at this point by the entrance of three young men and a lady, who were introduced to us as Mr. Lobonófski's exiled friends. In the appearance of the young men there was nothing particularly striking or noticeable. One of them seemed to be a bright university student, twenty-four or twenty-five years of age, and the other two looked like educated peasants or artisans, whose typically Russian faces were rather heavy, impassive, and gloomy, and whose manner was lacking in animation and responsiveness. Life and exile seemed to have gone hard with them, and to have left them depressed and embittered. The lady, whose name was Madame Dicheskúla, represented apparently a different social class, and had a more buoyant and sunny disposition. She was about thirty years of age, tall and straight, with a well-proportioned but somewhat spare figure, thick, short brown hair falling in a soft mass about the nape of her neck, and a bright, intelligent, mobile face, which I thought must once have been extremely pretty. It had become, however, a little too thin and worn, and her complexion had been freckled and roughened by exposure to ​wind and weather and by the hardships of prison and étape life. She was neatly and becomingly dressed in a Scotch plaid gown of soft dark serge, with little ruffles of white lace at her throat and wrists; and when her face lighted up in animated conversation, she seemed to me to be a very attractive and interesting woman. In her demeanor there was not a suggestion of the boldness, hardness, and eccentricity that I had expected to find in women exiled to Siberia for political crime. She talked rapidly and well; laughed merrily at times over reminiscences of her journey to Siberia; apologized for the unwomanly shortness of her hair, which, she said, had all been cut off in prison; and related with a keen sense of humor her adventures while crossing the Kírghis steppe from Akmolá to Semipalátinsk. That her natural buoyancy of disposition was tempered by deep feeling was evident from the way in which she described some of the incidents of her Siberian experience. She seemed greatly touched, for example, by the kindness shown to her party by the peasants of Kamishlóva, a village through which they passed on their way from Ekaterínburg to Tiumén. They happened to arrive there on Trinity Sunday, and were surprised to find that the villagers, as a manifestation of sympathy with the political exiles, had thoroughly scoured out and freshened up the old village étape, and had decorated its gloomy cells with leafy branches and fresh wild-flowers. It seemed to me that tears came to her eyes as she expressed her deep and grateful appreciation of this act of thoughtfulness and good-will on the part of the Kamishlóva peasants.
About nine o'clock Mr. Lobonófski brought in a steaming sámovar, Madame Dicheskúla made tea, and throughout the remainder of the evening we sat all around the big pine table as if we had been acquainted for months instead of hours, talking about the Russian revolutionary movement, the exile system, literature, art, science, and American politics. The cool, reasonable way in which these exiles ​discussed public affairs, problems of government, and their personal experience impressed me very favorably. There was none of the bitterness of feeling and extravagance of statement that I had anticipated, and I did not notice in their conversation the least tendency to exaggerate or even to dwell upon their own sufferings as a means of exciting our sympathy. Madame Dicheskúla, for instance, had been robbed of most of her clothing and personal effects by the police at the time of her arrest; had spent more than a year in solitary confinement in the Moscow forwarding prison; had then been banished, without trial, to a dreary settlement in the Siberian province of Akmolínsk; and, finally, had been brought across the great Kírghis steppe in winter to the city of Semipalátinsk. In all this experience there must have been a great deal of intense personal suffering; but she did not lay half as much stress upon it in conversation as she did upon the decoration of the old étape with leafy branches and flowers by the people of Kamishlóva, as an expression of sympathy with her and her exiled friends. About eleven o'clock, after a most pleasant and interesting evening, we bade them all good-night and returned to our hotel.
On the following morning Mr. Lobonófski, Madame Dicheskúla, Mr. Frost, and I took dróshkies and drove down the right bank of the Írtish a mile or two, to a small grove of poplars and aspens near the water's edge, where six or eight political exiles were spending the summer in camp. A large Kírghis yurt of felt, and two or three smaller cotton tents, had been pitched on the grass under the trees, and in them were living two or three young women and four or five young men, who had taken this means of escaping from the heat, glare, and sand of the verdureless city. Two of the women were mere girls, seventeen or eighteen years of age, who looked as if they ought to be pursuing their education in a high school or a female seminary, and why they had been exiled to Siberia I could not imagine. ​It did not seem to me possible that they could be regarded in any country, or under any circumstances, as a dangerous menace to social order or to the stability of the Government. As I shook hands with them and noticed their shy, embarrassed behavior, and the quick flushes of color which came to their cheeks when I spoke to them, I experienced for the first time something like a feeling of contempt for the Russian Government. "If I were the Tsar," I said to Mr. Frost, "and had an army of soldiers and police at my back, and if, nevertheless, I felt so afraid of timid, half-grown school-girls that I could n't sleep in peaceful security until I had banished them to Siberia, I think I should abdicate in favor of some stronger and more courageous man." The idea that a powerful Government like that of Russia could not protect itself against seminary girls and Sunday-school teachers without tearing them from their families, and isolating them in the middle of a great Asiatic desert, seemed to me not only ludicrous, but absolutely preposterous.
We spent in the pleasant shady camp of these political exiles nearly the whole of the long, hot summer day. Mr. Frost made sketches of the picturesquely grouped tents, while I talked with the young men, read Irving aloud to one of them who was studying English, answered questions about America, and asked questions in turn about Siberia and Russia. Before the day ended we were upon as cordial and friendly a footing with the whole party as if we had known them for a month.
Late in the afternoon we returned to the city, and in the evening went to the house of Mr. Leántief, where most of the political exiles whom we had not yet seen had been invited to meet us. The room into which we were ushered was much larger and better furnished than that in which Mr. Lobonófski lived; but nothing in it particularly attracted my attention except a portrait of Herbert Spencer, which hung on the wall over Mr. Leántief's desk. There ​were twelve or fifteen exiles present, including Mr. Lobonófski, Madame Dicheskúla, Dr. Bogomólets,—a young surgeon whose wife was in penal servitude at the mines of Kará,—and the two Prisédski sisters, to whom reference was made in my article upon the "Prison Life of the Russian Revolutionists," in The Century Magazine for December, 1887. The general conversation which followed our introduction to the assembled company was bright, animated, and informal. Mr. Leántief, in reply to questions from me, related the history of the Semipalátinsk library, and said that it had not only been a great boon to the political exiles, but had noticeably stimulated the intellectual life of the city. "Even the Kírghis," he said, "occasionally avail themselves of its privileges. I know a learned old Kírghis here, named Ibrahim Konobai, who not only goes to the library, but reads such authors as Buckle, Mill, and Draper."
"You don 't mean to say," exclaimed a young university student, "that there is any old Kírghis in Semipalátinsk who actually reads Mill and Draper!"
"Yes, I do," replied Mr. Leántief, coolly. "The very first time I met him he astonished me by asking me to explain to him the difference between induction and deduction. Some time afterward I found out that he was really making a study of English philosophy, and had read Russian translations of all the authors that I have named."
"Do you suppose that he understood what he read?" inquired the university student.
"I spent two whole evenings in examining him upon Draper's 'Intellectual Development of Europe,'" replied Mr. Leántief; "and I must say that he seemed to have a very fair comprehension of it."
"I notice," I said, "that a large number of books in the library—particularly the works of the English scientists—have been withdrawn from public use, although all of them seem once to have passed the censor. How does it happen ​that books are at one time allowed and at another time prohibited?"
"Our censorship is very capricious," replied one of the exiles. "How would you explain the fact that such a book as Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' is prohibited, while Darwin's 'Origin of Species' and 'Descent of Man' are allowed? The latter are certainly more dangerous than the former."
"It has been suggested," said another, "that the list of prohibited books was made up by putting together, without examination, the titles of all books found by the police in the quarters of persons arrested for political offenses. The 'Wealth of Nations' happened to be found in some unfortunate revolutionist's house, therefore the 'Wealth of Nations' must be a dangerous book."
"When I was arrested," said Mr. Lobonófski, "the police seized and took away even a French history that I had borrowed from the public library. In looking hastily through it they noticed here and there the word 'revolution,' and that was enough. I tried to make them understand that a French history must, of course, treat of the French Revolution, but it was of no use. They also carried off, under the impression that it was an infernal machine, a rude imitation of a steam-engine which my little brother had made for amusement out of some bits of wood and metal and the tubes of an old opera-glass." Amidst general laughter, a number of the exiles related humorous anecdotes illustrating the methods of the Russian police, and then the conversation drifted into other channels.
As an evidence of the intelligence and culture of these political exiles, and of the wide range of their interests and sympathies, it seems to me worth while to say that their conversation showed more than a superficial acquaintance with the best English and American literature, as well as a fairly accurate knowledge of American institutions and history. Among the authors referred to, discussed, or ​quoted by them that evening were Shakspere, Mill, Spencer, Buckle, Balfour Stewart, Heine, Hegel, Lange, Irving, Cooper, Longfellow, Bret Harte, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. They knew the name and something of the record of our newly elected President, discussed intelligently his civil-service reform policy and asked pertinent questions with regard to its working, and manifested generally an acquaintance with American affairs that one does not expect to find anywhere on the other side of the Atlantic, and least of all in Siberia.
After a plain but substantial supper, with delicious overland tea, the exiles sang for us in chorus some of the plaintive popular melodies of Russia, and Mr. Frost and I tried, in turn, to give them an idea of our college songs, our war songs, and the music of the American negroes. It must have been nearly midnight when we reluctantly bade them all good-by and returned to the Hotel Sibir.
It is impossible, of course, to give even the substance of the long conversations concerning the Russian Government and the Russian revolutionary movement which I had with the political exiles in Semipalátinsk. All that I aim to do at present is to describe, as fairly and accurately as possible, the impression that these exiles made upon me. If I may judge others by myself, American readers have had an idea that the people who are called nihilists stand apart from the rest of mankind in a class by themselves, and that there is in their character something fierce, gloomy, abnormal, and, to a sane mind, incomprehensible, which alienates from them, and which should alienate from them, the sympathies of the civilized world. If the political exiles in Semipalátinsk be taken as fair representatives of the class thus judged, the idea seems to me to be a wholly mistaken one. I found them to be bright, intelligent, well-informed men and women, with warm affections, quick sympathies, generous impulses, and high standards of honor and duty. They are, as Mr. Pávlovski said to me, "men and women who, ​under other circumstances, might render valuable services to their country." If, instead of thus serving their country, they are living in exile, it is not because they are lacking in the virtue and the patriotism that are essential to good citizenship, but because the Government, which assumes the right to think and act for the Russian people, is out of harmony with the spirit of the time.
* ↑ This monograph has since been published in the "Proceedings of the West Siberian Branch of the Imperial Geographical Society."
* ↑ See appendix C.