more than twilight, engraved
still more deeply the mood of fatalism that had already descended on most of
the prisoners. A.J. was no exception. He did not find himself worrying much,
and he was not nearly so low-spirited as he had been amidst the comparatively
comfortable surroundings of the Irkutsk prison. He felt scarcely more than a
growing numbness, as if a part of his brain and personality were losing
actual existence.
Yakutsk was almost pleasant after the barges, and the remaining weeks of
the summer passed without incident. Prison regulations, owing to the
remoteness of the settlement, were lax enough, and A.J. made several
acquaintances. One of them, an educated exile who had been allowed to set up
as a boot-repairer, had even heard of Russkoe Yansk. It was on the Indigirka
river, he thought, well beyond the Arctic Circle. It could only be a very
small settlement and it was years since he had heard of anyone being sent
there. “Perhaps they have made a mistake,” he hazarded, with
dispassionate cheerfulness. “Or perhaps the place does not exist at all
and they will have to bring you back. That has happened, you know.
There was a man sent to one place last year and the Cossacks themselves
couldn’t find it. They looked for it all winter and then had to hurry
back before the thaw began.” He laughed heartily. “I’m not
inventing the story, I assure you. Some of those Petersburg officials
don’t know their own country—they just stare at a map and
say—’Oh, we’ll send him here—or
there’—and maybe the map is wrong all the time!”
Early in September the Lena, miles wide, began to freeze over, and soon
the whole visible world became transfixed in the cold, darkening glare of
winter. The two guards who had left Irkutsk in charge of A.J. and who had
spent the summer amusing themselves as well as the amenities of Yakutsk
permitted, now indicated that the time for the resumption of the journey had
arrived. From now onwards it became a much more personal and solitary
affair—almost, in fact, a polar expedition, but without the spur of
hope and ambition to mitigate hardship. The three men, heavily furred, set
out by reindeer sledge into the long greyness of the sub-Arctic winter. Two
of them carried arms, yet the third man, defenceless, was given the place of
honour on all occasions—at night-time in the wayside huts, usually
uninhabited, and during the day whenever a halt was made for rest and food.
The temperature sank lower and lower and the sky darkened with every mile;
they crossed a range of bleak mountains and descended into a land of frozen
whiteness unbroken anywhere save by stunted willows. For food, there were
birds which the guards shot or snared, and unlimited fish could be obtained
by breaking through the thick ice in the streams. The fish froze stiff on
being taken out of the water; they had to be cut into slices and eaten raw
between hunks of bread. A.J.’s palate had by this time grown much less
fastidious, and he found such food not at all unpleasant when he was hungry
enough. The cold air and the harsh activity of the daily travel bred also in
him a sense of physical fitness which, at any other time, he would have
relished; as it was, however, he felt nothing but a grim and ever-deepening
insensitiveness to all outward impressions. He imagined vaguely the vast
distance he had already travelled, but it did not terrify him; it was merely
a memory of emptiness and boredom, and though he knew that the end of the
journey would mean the end of even the last vestige of changefulness, he yet
longed for it, because, for the moment, it seemed a change in itself.
One evening, thirteen weeks after leaving Yakutsk, the three men were
crossing a plain of snow under the light of the full moon. At the last
settlement, ten days previously, they had exchanged their reindeer transport
for dogs, and since then had been traversing this same white and
still more deeply the mood of fatalism that had already descended on most of
the prisoners. A.J. was no exception. He did not find himself worrying much,
and he was not nearly so low-spirited as he had been amidst the comparatively
comfortable surroundings of the Irkutsk prison. He felt scarcely more than a
growing numbness, as if a part of his brain and personality were losing
actual existence.
Yakutsk was almost pleasant after the barges, and the remaining weeks of
the summer passed without incident. Prison regulations, owing to the
remoteness of the settlement, were lax enough, and A.J. made several
acquaintances. One of them, an educated exile who had been allowed to set up
as a boot-repairer, had even heard of Russkoe Yansk. It was on the Indigirka
river, he thought, well beyond the Arctic Circle. It could only be a very
small settlement and it was years since he had heard of anyone being sent
there. “Perhaps they have made a mistake,” he hazarded, with
dispassionate cheerfulness. “Or perhaps the place does not exist at all
and they will have to bring you back. That has happened, you know.
There was a man sent to one place last year and the Cossacks themselves
couldn’t find it. They looked for it all winter and then had to hurry
back before the thaw began.” He laughed heartily. “I’m not
inventing the story, I assure you. Some of those Petersburg officials
don’t know their own country—they just stare at a map and
say—’Oh, we’ll send him here—or
there’—and maybe the map is wrong all the time!”
Early in September the Lena, miles wide, began to freeze over, and soon
the whole visible world became transfixed in the cold, darkening glare of
winter. The two guards who had left Irkutsk in charge of A.J. and who had
spent the summer amusing themselves as well as the amenities of Yakutsk
permitted, now indicated that the time for the resumption of the journey had
arrived. From now onwards it became a much more personal and solitary
affair—almost, in fact, a polar expedition, but without the spur of
hope and ambition to mitigate hardship. The three men, heavily furred, set
out by reindeer sledge into the long greyness of the sub-Arctic winter. Two
of them carried arms, yet the third man, defenceless, was given the place of
honour on all occasions—at night-time in the wayside huts, usually
uninhabited, and during the day whenever a halt was made for rest and food.
The temperature sank lower and lower and the sky darkened with every mile;
they crossed a range of bleak mountains and descended into a land of frozen
whiteness unbroken anywhere save by stunted willows. For food, there were
birds which the guards shot or snared, and unlimited fish could be obtained
by breaking through the thick ice in the streams. The fish froze stiff on
being taken out of the water; they had to be cut into slices and eaten raw
between hunks of bread. A.J.’s palate had by this time grown much less
fastidious, and he found such food not at all unpleasant when he was hungry
enough. The cold air and the harsh activity of the daily travel bred also in
him a sense of physical fitness which, at any other time, he would have
relished; as it was, however, he felt nothing but a grim and ever-deepening
insensitiveness to all outward impressions. He imagined vaguely the vast
distance he had already travelled, but it did not terrify him; it was merely
a memory of emptiness and boredom, and though he knew that the end of the
journey would mean the end of even the last vestige of changefulness, he yet
longed for it, because, for the moment, it seemed a change in itself.
One evening, thirteen weeks after leaving Yakutsk, the three men were
crossing a plain of snow under the light of the full moon. At the last
settlement, ten days previously, they had exchanged their reindeer transport
for dogs, and since then had been traversing this same white and
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