Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/193

My frankness and my childlike confidence in him finally began to produce the desired results. His manner softened and became more cordial; he poured out for me a third or a fourth cup of tea, asked me if I would not like to have some rum in it; and then, finding that I could be a sympathetic listener as well as a frank and communicative talker, he began to give me information about himself. He described to me the organization of the gendarmerie and the way in which gendarme officers are educated; gave me his own personal history; told me how many times and under what circumstances he had been promoted; how much salary he received; what decorations he had; how much longer he would have to serve before he could retire on a pension; and said, with a little pride, that he was the only officer of his rank in all Siberia who had the right to communicate directly with the Minister of the Interior. The conversation finally drifted into a discussion of common-criminal exile, and to my great surprise he vigorously condemned the étapes and the forwarding prisons; declared that the life of common convicts on the road was simply awful; and said that the banishment of criminals to Siberia was not only ruinous to the persons banished, but very detrimental to all the interests of the country. To me this was a wholly unexpected turn, and for a moment I hardly knew what course to take. He might be merely posing, as a philanthropist, — a sort of Howard in a gendarme officer's uniform, — or he might be luring me on with a view to finding out how much I knew and what my opinions were. An instant of reflection convinced me that my safest course would be to follow his lead, without betraying too much knowledge of the subject, and to lay as much stress as possible on the few good prisons that I had seen. I therefore deplored the overcrowding of the forwarding prisons and the bad sanitary condition of the étapes, but referred to the new central prison at Vérkhni Údinsk as an evidence that the Government was trying to improve the condition