The only person I found at home in one of the huts I was visiting in Upper Armudan was a towheaded boy of about ten with stooped shoulders and bare feet. His pale face was covered with large freckles and seemed to be made of marble. "What's your father's patronymic?" I asked. "Dunno," he answered.
"What do you mean? You are living with your father and you don't know his name? Shame on you!" "He's not my real father." "What do you mean, not 'real'?" "He's mom's cohabitant." "Is your mother married or widowed?" "Widow. She came here on account of her husband." "What do you mean, 'on account of her husband'?" "She killed him." "You remember your father?" "No. I'm illegitimate. My mom had me in Kara."29 Sakhalin children are pale, skinny, and listless; they wear rags and are always hungry.and generally die of intestinal ailments.
Quantify
Count, measure, weigh.
Mgachi. Population: 38, 20 males and 18 females. Homesteaders: 14. Families: 13, of which only 2 are legitimate. Arable land: approximately 32.4 acres, which for the past three years has not been sown with grain, but planted with potatoes. Eleven homesteaders are original settlers, with five of these having gained peasant status. Profits are good, which explains why the peasants are not in a hurry to move to the mainland. Seven keep dog teams, which they use in the winter to move the mail and passengers. One is a professional hunter. As for the fishing mentioned in the records of the central prison administration for 1890, there is none worth noting.
Tangi. Population: 19, 11 males and 8 females. Homesteaders: 6. Arable land: approximately 8.1 acres, which, as in Mgachi, where the cultivation of grain is hampered by frequent sea fogs, are planted under potatoes. Two homesteaders own boats and engage in fishing.
Khoe. Situated on the eponymous cape that juts prominently into the sea and is visible from Aleksandrovsk. Population: 34, 19 males and 15 females. Homesteaders: 13. Disenchantment has not set in here yet and wheat and barley are still planted. Three are hunters.
Trambaus. Population: 8, 3 males and 5 females. It is a happy settlement that has more women than men. Homesteaders: 3.
Viakhty. On the Viakhty River, which links the lake with the sea and in this respect recalls the Neva. The lake is said to contain whitefish and sturgeon. Population: 17, 9 males and 8 females. Homesteaders: 7.
Vangi. The northernmost settlement. Population: 13, 9 males and 4 females. Homesteaders: 8.
In another ward I found: a convict, his free wife, and son; a convict Tatar woman and her daughter; a convict Tatar, his free wife, and two little Tatar children in skullcaps; a convict, his free wife, and son; a settler—a thirty-five-year veteran of penal servitude, still youthful, with pitch-black whiskers, lacking boots and hence barefoot, a passionate card player30—and next to him on the sleeping platform his convict mistress, a shrunken, sleepy, and pitiful-looking creature; next to them, a convict, his free wife, and three children; a bachelor convict; a convict, his free wife, and two children; a settler; a well- groomed, cleanly shaved old convict. A piglet roots around the ward noisily; the floor lies under a slimy filth; the air stinks of bedbugs and something sour; it is said that one cannot live for the bedbugs.
Just how easy it is for the cooks to miscalculate the number of portions is clear from the amounts of each ingredient that go into the pot. On May 3, 1890, 1,279 persons in Alek- sandrovsk prison were fed from a single pot into which went: 540 lbs of meat; 200 lbs rice, 50 lbs of flour for thickening, 40 lbs salt, 960 lbs potatoes, 1/3 lb bay leaf, and 2/3 lb pepper. In the same prison on September 29, 675 inmates were fed: 680 lbs fish, 120 lbs groats, 40 lbs flour, 20 lbs salt, 500 lbs potatoes, 1/6 lb bay leaf and 1/3 lb pepper.
In a ten-year period, 170 incidents of death from unnatural causes were recorded for the Orthodox population. Of these, 20 were executed by hanging, 2 were hanged by unknown persons; 27 committed suicide—in northern Sakhalin by gunshot (one while on sentry duty), and in southern Sakhalin, by wolfbane poisoning. Many died of drowning, freezing, of being crushed by trees; one was mauled by a bear. In addition to such causes of death as stroke, heart attack, apoplexy, general paralysis, etc., the church records also show 17 "sudden" deaths, of which more than half were of persons between the ages of 22 and 44, and only one over 50.
I took several loaves of bread—at random—from the many prepared for daily distribution to the prisoners and weighed them and found that each weighed a little over three pounds.
Make Inventories
Draw up lists of objects and instruments.
From this same report, I transcribe excerpts dealing with the hospital inventory. All three infirmaries had the following: gynecological set: 1; laryngoscopes set: 1; maximal thermometers: 2, both broken; "body temperature" thermometers: 9, of which 2 are broken; "high fever" thermometers: 1; trocar: 1; Pravaz syringes: 3, of which 1 needle is broken; pewter syringes: 29; scissors: 9, of which 2 are broken; enema tubes: 34; drainage tubes: 1; large mortar and pestle: 1, cracked; razor strop: 1; cupping jars: 14.
THE ACTUAL WRITING
overcoming initial difficulties
Do Not Put Off Writing
Write while your impressions are still fresh.
Letter to Alexei Suvorin, March 5, 1891 My work is nowhere near to being finished. If I put it off until May, I will not get to the Sakhalin project until July at the very earliest, which would be dangerous because my impressions of Sakhalin are already evaporating, and I risk forgetting a lot.
Understand Your Reasons for Not Writing
Do not preach and do not hide the truth.
Letter to Alexei Suvorin, July 28, 1893 I have been suspecting for a long time that I have been off course, but I have now finally figured out where I have gone wrong. The falseness is in my apparent desire to teach my reader something with my "Sakhalin" and, at the same time, in my hiding something and holding myself back. But as soon as I let myself describe how much of an eccentric I felt myself to be in Sakhalin and what swine those people are, then, at that point, I felt better and my work took off, even though it did turn out a touch humorous.
give the book a shape The Beginning
Begin at the point when you arrive at the project site and relate your first impressions.
On July 5, 1890, I arrived by steamboat at the city of Niko- layevsk, one of the easternmost outposts of our country. Here, about eighteen miles from the sea, the Amur River is extremely wide. It is a majestic and beautiful spot, but the stories about its past, travelers' tales about its savage winters and equally savage traditions, the nearness of the prison camps, and the filthy, dying town itself—all of this instantly kills any inclination to take pleasure in the landscape.
Tell the Story of the Journey
Relate the story of the journey from start to finish, describing the places and the events you experienced—even if these have nothing to do with your main argument—because these will help put your recollections in context.
On the shore, there were several small houses and a church. This was the Aleksandrovsk command post. The commandant, his administrative assistant, and the telegraph operators all lived here. One of the local officials, a boring and bored gentleman who dined with us on the steamship, talked nonstop during dinner, drank up a storm, and regaled us with that stale anecdote about the geese that gorged on brandied cherries, collapsed in an alcoholic daze, were taken for dead, plucked, dumped outside the house, and, when they revived in the morning, found their way home buck naked. The official swore up and down that the incident with the geese took place in De Castries, in his own house.