CHAPTER X.
THE GOVERNMENT OF YENISSEISK AND KRASNOIARSK.
Wretched aspect of the villages of this province--The country at last becomes hilly--The night watchers at Krasnoiarsk--M. Lovatine’s three collections--A Polish exile’s ball.
I took my departure from Tomsk on the 26th of January. The appearance of the road at first did not differ materially from the one I had recently passed over.
In the villages, however, there was a great difference. Certain details showed the absence of civilization and industry of any kind. The poor inhabitants, instead of admitting light into their dwellings through glass, which would be too costly for them, plug the holes with the skins of their sheep. One may easily imagine how little light can penetrate through these small apertures, and how gloomy the existence of these poor creatures must be during a long winter’s darkness.
These dwellings are raised without any prepared foundation, and are composed of posts or beams bound firmly together. When a thaw takes place, the result is a subsidence, and these hovels, instead of falling down altogether, being secured laterally, simply lean in a mass on one side. In this position they generally remain; for their inhabitants give themselves no trouble to set them upright again. The consequence is that the flooring inside is frequently so inclined, that it is quite an effort to climb across it. This accident, so very common in this part of Siberia, gives a miserably dilapidated look to the villages; the roofs seem ready to fall over each other, or fall away in another direction; the upper story in some is brought down on end almost to the ground, and in others the ground floor is thrown up on an inclined plane to the height of first stories. On beholding this disorder, the spectator would suppose the village had been scourged with a hurricane or an earthquake.
The day after our departure from Tomsk, we entered into a vast birch forest--so vast, that it covers all the central region of Siberia. These trees, which in our country never come to any great size, and which we look upon as some of the most attractive ornaments of our woods, acquire here enormous proportions, but at the same time, I must say, to the detriment of their gracefulness and beauty. In growing old, the bark of their trunks loses its bright pale colour, which we are accustomed to admire, and looks dirty beside the snow; and then, when they advance to decrepitude, it becomes quite black. The most noticeable peculiarity of these forests is that they have never been cut and turned to account. Such an enormous mass of trees allowed to perish is a thing unheard of in France. Here and there may be seen huge trunks, lying on the ground, or leaning against others, ready to fall, or broken off half-way, attesting the violence of some passing cyclone or the destructive power of lightning. Enormous birds of a black or deep blue colour, known generally by the name of cock of the wood, roost on the branches of these venerable trees, and then may be seen huge owls, all white, turning lazily their flat faces towards the passing traveller, regarding him without moving, with the utmost indifference. Here, perhaps, more than elsewhere, is the domain of the strange and fantastic, and it requires little effort of the imagination to people it with all the fanciful and grotesque creations of mediæval poesy.
We continued a long time travelling on through this primeval forest, whose mournful silence and savage grandeur disposed me to muse rather than to talk. My companion also seemed to have his thoughts engrossed with something weighty; he was thinking of the future--of his parents and friends he was shortly about to join, and, what I suspected, of Miss Campbell, who had preceded us on this road. Mine, on the contrary, were rather of the present and the past; I thought of the long distance I had already glided over in my sledge; then my soul wandered from the dark, mysterious forest to the unveiled, prosaic steppe, and finally went astray in bewilderment at the immensity of this trackless space.
The surface, over which we were now moving, was becoming gently undulated, then little hillocks succeeded, and at last the monotonous flatness disappeared.
This reminded me very forcibly how indifferent we become in time to the endlessly repeated or continued scenes of everyday life, however congenial they may be, and how readily we wake up to even a bare consciousness of them after a merely moderate interval of their interruption.
Since leaving the Ural, I had been travelling from six to seven hundred leagues over a country absolutely flat, presenting some interesting features, it is true, and not least the marvellous effects of light; but for all that, it was void of variety and life; and this novel contrast revealed how dear to me were the animated and changing scenes to which I had been habituated, and how little, from too much familiarity with them, was I then able to appreciate them.
During the two days preceding my arrival at Krasnoiarsk, I passed several hills, sometimes abrupt and sometimes gently sloping, and then again others rising to a peak high over valleys, that appeared to me very deep. My eye was at last interested in some change, and could be attracted on the right by reflections of sunbeams from the snow mantling striking diverse objects, or repose on the left in the impenetrable shadows. In short, the monotony had ceased, and to the fatigues of the journey had succeeded the excitement of locomotion, the variety and life of picturesque nature. At the view of this change, I vividly felt how lonely and joyless had been the dead, changeless plain I had left behind me. I thought of the poor inhabitants of Omsk, who look over the steppe so often with longing eyes. It is not from a love for this immense plain, it struck me at the time, but from some vague instinctive hope, of which they are barely conscious, though sensible, to see beyond in the horizon the dawn of something brighter than this endless uniformity, and perhaps in such a hope they find their happiness.
On approaching Krasnoiarsk, the hills rise higher and higher, and become at last, around the city, imposing mountains. We made our entry into this capital of the province of Yenisseisk on the 29th of January at three in the afternoon.
As the day was closing in, I went out at once, and was able to contemplate and admire the picturesque position of Krasnoiarsk. It is built on the banks of the Yenissei, which meanders between two very high mountains, whose precipitous sides give more striking depth to the valley they overhang. It is in a hollow at the foot of one of these towering cliffs that the city is built.
My first impression of Krasnoiarsk was therefore favourable. It seemed to me that the inhabitants of this city, having such a fine view of nature before their eyes, ought to be gayer and more inventive than those I had just left behind me, and my expectation in this was not at all deceived. The society of Krasnoiarsk, from another cause, however, might have been thought to be sedate and little disposed to hospitality, since it is composed of Polish exiles having little reason for mirth, and some gold-seekers, to whom anything else than heavy glittering nuggets seemed unworthy to occupy their thoughts.
I did not look up my letters of recommendation to make use of them till the following day. During the night, a singular and continuous noise hindered me from sleeping; it was the harsh clank produced by the violent shock of two pieces of metal. The sounds were repeated at quick intervals, and seemed to move from one part of the house to the other. Conjectures as to the cause of this strange noise increased the excitement of my mind, and contributed to keep me awake. The explanation came in due course. It appears that the Siberians here have borrowed from the Chinese this strange custom of warning thieves by this ceaseless jangling noise, that the inmates are on the alert within, and that any attempt at a burglary would be discovered and frustrated. Lucky thieves who thus know which house to avoid and which to pillage! Happy families who have their ears charmed and their slumbers lulled with such music!
The first visit I made at Krasnoiarsk was to a _savant_, M. Lovatine, who has three remarkable collections: first, a collection of objects in stone--prehistoric stone implements of the aboriginal inhabitants of Siberia, which are quite similar to others I have seen in other countries of Europe and in other parts of the world. M. Lovatine seemed quite devoted to this study, and I could well understand the pleasure it gave him without being able to enter into it myself. Next, there was a numismatic collection, on which he gave me some interesting explanations. I will mention, among others, a medal struck under Peter the Great, the possession of which at that time exempted compliance with the general regulation prescribed by this great reformer to his subjects under which they were obliged to divest themselves of their beards. Those who wished to indulge in the luxury of this hirsute appendage were made to pay very dearly for it; for the Emperor was not indulgent towards those who did not approve his orders: and thus a tax on a luxury was obtained. The form of this medal is rather singular, having a piece nipped out on one side like a barber’s shaving dish. The third collection was geological, to which Siberia, with its abundance and variety of minerals, could contribute largely. In connection with this M. Lovatine had some political theories, the principal of which was that the further south people lived, the more turbulent and the more difficult to govern they were, and that Southern lands were better fitted to despots.
The Siberians dance a great deal; balls are frequent and very elegant, but they rarely take place in private houses. In every city there are generally two clubs, the club of the _noblesse_ and the club of the _bourgeoisie_, to either of which one is invited to come and pass the evening, according to his position, the _noblesse_ being composed of the Government functionaries and the other of traders.
The day after my arrival at Krasnoiarsk, I was invited to a ball at the club of the _noblesse_. The functionaries not being numerous in this city, they had invited a few of the commercial class, and particularly some Polish exiles. A ball of convicts seemed to be something incongruous, but it would be an error to suppose that the Poles exiled in Siberia are at present all ill-treated, and that they while away their time in weeping for their beloved country. When I come to Irkutsk, I shall have occasion to speak more fully of the fate of the Polish exiles in Siberia. But now, here in Krasnoiarsk, nearly all were members of good society. Their political opinions, like those of all Poles I have met, are, it is true, extremely advanced. They had not only taken part in their war of independence, but had been nearly all implicated in insurrections beyond the borders of their country; they admired our violent French demagogues, and found excuses for our Commune; but in spite of these preposterous opinions, which ignorance of contemporary history and distance from the scene of action may have rendered excusable, I found at Krasnoiarsk a society of enlightened Poles and perfectly well-bred men. As they formed the majority, the ball was quite _à la mode polonaise_, and it is a kind of dancing, in my opinion, that ought to survive for ever their lost nationality. One never steps as in an ordinary walk. To proceed from one side to another, it is necessary to adopt the step called _la polonaise_, rather difficult to master, it is true, but which is, undoubtedly, very graceful. The consequence is that in these dances, and especially the _cotillon_, there is a liveliness that is never seen in our salons, considered the gayest in the world. As another proof of the knowledge which the Russians and Poles have of our language, I will merely observe that here, in this city lost in the depth of Siberia, when the ball was over and we sat down to supper, a very numerous party spoke no other language than French.
It is here at Krasnoiarsk that one begins to become acquainted with a few gold-seekers. I was first received at the house of M. Rodosvenny, who, although enormously rich, is here considered simply in pretty comfortable circumstances, on account of his neighbour M. Kousnietzof, whose mines are considerably richer. After I had seen at Irkutsk and at Kiachta the houses of Nemptchinof, Bazanof, and Trapeznikof, the luxury of M. Kousnietzof did not appear to me more extraordinary; but knowing the cost of living to a simple traveller in Siberia, and having gleaned some information as to the cost of an elegant house in stone and ironwork, materials that have chiefly to be brought all the way from the Ural, I was lost in wonder at this palace of M. Kousnietzof, quite as extensive as our grand Parisian mansions and almost as luxuriously appointed.
To mention two or three luxurious follies in which these great proprietors of gold mines in Eastern Siberia indulge, I will refer to the cigar ash receptacle--where the smokers in the salon drop the ends of their cigarettes, according to the Russian custom, after a meal--composed of a pure nugget of gold, worth sixteen hundred pounds sterling, and just in the rough state in which it had been found in the mine. The Czar has permitted, in an exceptional case, M. Kousnietzof to retain possession of this nugget in his house, on account of the rarity of such a godsend. The proprietor of this treasure did not omit to inform me that having had this precious receptacle for thirty years, he had lost not merely the sixteen hundred pounds sterling, but also the interest, two thousand four hundred pounds, and, consequently, this luxury had cost him four thousand pounds. Having gratified my curiosity by weighing in my hands again and again this enormous nugget, I took leave of this opulent family.
The next day, we found ourselves again seated in the sledge with a journey of two hundred and fifty leagues to accomplish without a break, at the end of which we hoped to find ourselves in Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia.