A quarter of an hour later we landed, drenched and frozen, 4· The story of Caesar's rebuke to the boatman is told by Plutarch in his Life of Caesar, chapter 38.
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near the walls of the Kremlin of Kazan. At the nearest publichouse I got a glass of spirits and a hard-boiled egg, and then went off to the post-house.
4
In villages and small towns, the post-master keeps a room for the accommodation of travellers ; but in the large towns, where everybody goes to the hotels, there is no such provision. I was taken into the office, and the post-master showed me his own room. It was occupied by women and children and an old bedridden man ; there was positively not a comer where I could change my clothes. I wrote a letter to the officer in command of the Kazan police, asking him to arrange that I should have some place where I could warm myself and dry my clothes.
My messenger returned in an hour's time and reported that Count Apraxin would grant my request. I waited two hours more, but no one came, and I despatched my messenger again. He brought this answer - that the colonel who had received Apraxin's order was playing whist at the club, and that nothing could be done for me till next day.
This was positive cruelty, and I wrote a second letter to Apraxin. I asked him to send me on at once and said I hoped to find better quarters after the next stage of my journey. But my letter was not delivered, because the Count had gone to bed. I could do no more. I took off my wet clothes in the office; then I wrapped myself up in a soldier's overcoat and lay down on the table ; a thick book, covered with some of my linen, served me as a pillow.
I sent out for some breakfast in the morning. By that time the clerks were arriving, and the door-keeper pointed out to me that a public office was an unsuitable place to breakfast in ; it made no difference to him personally, but the post-master might disapprove of my proceedings.
I laughed and said that a captive was secure against eviction and was bound to eat and drink in his place of confinement,
- wherever it might be.
Next morning Count Apraxin gave me leave to stay three days at Kazan and to put up at a hotel.
For those three days I wandered about the city, attended everywhere by my keeper. The veiled faces of the Tatar women, the high cheekbones of their husbands, the mosques of true believers
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standing side b y side with the churches of the Orthodox faith - it all reminds one of Asia and the East. At Vladimir or Nizhny the neighbourhood of Moscow is felt ; but one feels far from Moscow at Kazan.
'5
When I reached Perm, I was taken straight to the Governor's house. There was a great gathering there; for it was his daughter's wedding-day; the bridegroom was an officer in the Army. The Governor insisted that I should come in. So I made my bow to the beau monde of Perm, covered with mud and dust, and wearing a shabby, stained coat. The Governor talked a great deal of nonsense ; he told me to keep clear of the Polish exiles in the town and to call again in the course of a few days, when he would provide me with some occupation in the public offices.
The Governor of Perm was a Little Russian ; he was not hard upon the exiles and behaved reasonably in other respects. Like a mole which adds grain to grain in some underground repository, so he kept putting by a trifle for a rainy day, without anyone being the wiser.
6
From some dim idea of keeping a check over us, he ordered that all the exiles residing at Perm should report themselves at his house, at ten every Saturday morning. He came in smoking his pipe and ascertained, by means of a list which he carried, whether all were present ; if anyone was missing, he sent to enquire the reason; he hardly ever spoke to anyone before dismissing us.
Thus I made the acquaintance in his drawing-room of all the Poles whom he had told me I was to avoid.
The day after I reached Perm, my keeper departed, and I was at liberty for the first time since my arrest - at liberty, in a little town on the Siberian frontier, with no experience of life and no comprehension of the sphere in which I was now forced to live.
From the nursery I had passed straight to the lecture-room, and from the lecture-room to a small circle of friends, an intimate world of theories and dreams, without contact with practical life ; then came prison, with its opportunities for reflection ; and contact with life was only beginning now and here, by the ridge of the Ural Mountains.
Practical life made itself felt at once : the day after my arrival
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I went to look for lodgings with the porter at the Governor's office ; he took me to a large one-storeyed house ; and, though I explained that I wanted a small house, or, better still, part of a house, he insisted that I should go in.
The lady who owned the house made me sit on the sofa. Hearing that I came from Moscow, she asked if I had seen M. Kabrit there. I replied that I had never in my life heard a name like it.
'Come, come ! ' said the old lady; 'I mean M. Kabrit,' and she gave his Christian name and patronymic. 'You don't say, batyushka, that you don't know him ! He is our Vice-Governor ! '
'Well, I spent nine months in prison,' I said smiling, 'and perhaps that accounts for my not hearing of him.'
'It may be so. And so you want to hire the little house, batyushka ?'
'It's a big house, much too big ; I said so to the man who brought me.'
'Too much of this world's goods are no burden to the back.'
'True ; but you will ask a large rent for your large house.'
'Who told you, young man, about my prices ? I've not opened my mouth yet.'
'Yes, but I know you can't ask little for a house like this.'
'How much do you offer ?'
In order to have done with her, I said that I would not pay more than 3 50 roubles.
'A nd glad I am to get it, my lad ! Just drink a glass of Canary, and go and have your boxes moved in here.' .
The rent seemed to me fabulously low, and I took the house. I was just going when she stopped me.
'I forgot to ask you one thing - do you mean to keep a cow ?'
'Good heavens I No I ' I answered, deeply insulted by such a question.
'Very well; then I will supply you with cream.'
I went home, thinking with horror that I had reached a place where I was thought capable of keeping a cow I 7
Before I had time to look about me, the Governor informed me that I was transferred to Vyatka : another exile who was destined for Vyatka had asked to be transferred to Perm, where some of his
C H I L DH O O D, Y O U T H A N D E X I L E
relations lived. The Governor wished m e t o start next day. But that was impossible ; as I expected to stay some time at Perm, I had bought a quantity of things and must sell them, even at a loss of 50 per cent. After several evasive answers, the Governor allowed me to stay for forty-eight hours longer, but he made me promise not to seek an opportunity of meeting the exile from Vyatka.