iserable home, which, however, was scrupulously
clean, and we drank tea and discussed people and events in distant
Europe far into the night. And Madame sang Polish love-songs in a sweet,
pathetic voice, and I recounted one or two American yarns in Yankee
vernacular which excited inordinate gaiety, so easily amused were these
poor souls with minds dulled by long years of lethargy and despair. And
I wondered, as I glanced around the squalid room, how many years had
elapsed since its mud-walls had last echoed to the sounds of genuine
laughter!

Abramovitch and his wife spoke French fluently, the former also English.
But two-thirds of the political exiles I met throughout the journey
spoke two, and sometimes three, languages besides their own, while
German was universal. In most cases the exiles had taught themselves,
often under the most adverse conditions, in the gloomy cell of some
Polish fortress or the damp and twilit casemates of SS. Peter and Paul.
Most exiles make it a rule on their banishment to take up some subject,
history, chemistry, natural science, &c., otherwise insanity would be
far more prevalent amongst them than it is. At Verkhoyansk books are
occasionally obtainable, but further north their scarcity formed a
serious drawback to study and mental recreation. Even at Verkhoyansk the
censure on literature is very strict, and works on social science and
kindred subjects are strictly tabooed by the authorities. On the other
hand almost any kind of novel in any language may be read, so long as it
does not refer in any way to the Russian Government and its methods. At
the time of our visit "Quo Vadis" was on everybody's lips, and the
solitary copy had been read and re-read into rags, although it had only
been a month in the settlement. Dickens, Thackeray, Zola, and Anthony
Hope were favourite authors, but whole pages were missing from most of
the volumes in the tiny library, and the books were otherwise mutilated,
not by carelessness or ill usage, but by incessant use.

I closely questioned Abramovitch as to the conditions of life at
Verkhoyansk and he said that so far as the treatment of the exiles was
concerned there was nothing to complain of, but the miserable pittance
allowed by the Government for the lodging and maintenance of each exile
was, he justly averred, totally inadequate where even the common
necessaries of life cost fabulous prices. Apparently this allowance
varies in the various districts; thu