I was also attracted towards him. He knew of my previous marriage and proposed that we should live together by civil agreement, without the sanction of the Church, a very common mode of marriage in Russia of late years, because of the difficulty of obtaining a divorce. I consented to his proposal, on condition that he told me the reason for his living in a small barn in the backyard, apart from the family. He agreed.
“When I was twenty,” he began, “my father was engaged in the business of supplying meat to several army regiments. He was a partner in a firm, and was assisted by my brothers and myself. Considering me the most industrious and reliable of his sons, he entrusted me once with ten thousand roubles (about £1,055 11s.) to go to buy cattle. Most of the money did not belong to him.
“On the train I was drawn into a game of cards, deliberately got up by a gang of rascals for the purpose of fleecing innocent passengers like myself. I lost all my money and my clothes to boot. Dressed in rags, with two roubles, presented to me by the gamblers, in my pocket, I alighted at the Chinese frontier in a suicidal state of mind. There I became acquainted, at an inn, with some Chinese brigands who were members of a band operating in the neighbourhood. One of them was the chief of the band.
“I told him my story, adding that I would do anything to save my father from disgrace and bankruptcy. He proposed that I should join his band in a raid on an incoming train which was carrying fifty thousand roubles. I was aghast at the suggestion. But then I had a vision of my parents turned out of their house, of their property sold at auction, and of themselves forced to go begging. It rent my heart. There was nothing to do but to accept the offer. I was led by the chief into a field and there introduced to most of the robbers. I was the only white man in the band.
“In the evening we armed ourselves with daggers, pistols and rifles and started for the railway line, where we lay in wait for the train. The thought that I had turned highwayman nearly froze my blood. It was such a violence to my own nature.
“The train was to pass at one in the morning. I prayed to God that He would save me somehow from this experience. Suddenly a body of Cossacks appeared in the distance, racing in our direction. The authorities had been on the track of this band for a long time. Every man in the gang threw down his weapons and ran into the forest. I, too, ran for all I was worth.
“The Cossacks pursued us, and I was caught. As I was a Russian and a new member of the organization, I succeeded by persistent denials of any knowledge of the band in creating doubt in the minds of my captors as to my participation in the projected raid. But I was arrested and sent to the Irkutsk prison, where I was kept for a whole year. There I came in contact with many politicals and was converted to their ideas. Finally, for lack of evidence I was set free.
“I returned home covered with disgrace. My father had arrived at an understanding with his partner whereby he was to pay back in monthly instalments the sum I had gambled away. He would not let me enter the house, but my mother defended me. There was a quarrel, which ended in an agreement that I be allowed to occupy this barn. But my father swore that he would disinherit me, giving my share of his estate to his other sons.”
I soon had occasion to discover that Yasha was considered a suspicious character by the local police, because of his imprisonment. His kindness, too, was his misfortune. Freed or escaped prisoners would sometimes visit him secretly and he would give them his last penny, piece of bread or shirt. But I liked him all the more for that, for it was this warm heart in him that had rescued me from death. We vowed to be faithful to each other forever. And I entered upon my duties as a housewife.
The barn in which we were going to live was filled with rubbish, and had never been cleaned. I applied myself industriously to making it habitable. It was not an easy task, but I finally succeeded. We received a gift of one hundred roubles from Yasha’s parents, and decided to establish a butcher’s shop of our own. We got some lumber and built a small shop. Then Yasha bought three cows and the two of us led them to the slaughterhouse, where I learned how to butcher. Yasha ran the shop. I was the first woman butcher in that neighbourhood.
One summer day, while walking in the street, I saw some boys peddling ice-cream. I had learned how to make ice-cream during my apprenticeship with Nastasia Leontievna. It occurred to me that I could make ice-cream and sell it. Finding out from the boys how much they paid for it, I offered them better cream at a lower price and asked them to come for it the next day. I immediately returned home and bought milk from Yasha’s mother, who offered to give it to me without payment upon learning the purpose for which it was intended. The ice-cream I prepared was, happily, very good, and it sold quickly. During the summer I earned two or three roubles daily by this means.
I led a life of peaceful industry with Yasha for
