I went next to the jail, hoping to see Yasha. But there I was informed that he had been sent to Nerchinsk, about five miles from Stretinsk. I was not long in making an effort to catch up with him. Taking with me a hundred roubles, I caught the next train to Nerchinsk, just as I was, and, immediately upon my arrival there, sought an audience with the Governor, and was told to await my turn in the line. When my turn came, the Governor, reading my name from the list, asked:
“Well, what is your case?”
“My husband, your Excellency, Yasha Buk,” I replied.
“Your husband, eh? How is he your husband if your name is Bochkareva?”
“By civil agreement, your Excellency.”
“We know these civil marriages,” he remarked scoffingly. “There are many like you in the streets,” and he dismissed my case. He said it in the hearing of a room full of people. My blood rushed to my face, and I was bitterly hurt. It was with difficulty that I got a card of admission to the prison, but how profound was my grief upon being informed that Yasha had spent there only one night and had been sent on to Irkutsk.
I had barely enough money with me to buy a fourth-class ticket to Irkutsk, and hardly any of the necessaries for a journey, but I did not hesitate to take the next train westward. It took three days to reach the Siberian capital. I stopped again with the Sementovskys, who were glad to welcome me. I made my way to the Irkutsk prison, only to discover that Yasha had been taken to the Central Distribution Prison at Alexandrovsk, two miles from the railway station of Usolye. There was little time to lose. I left the same day for Usolye, whence I had to walk to Alexandrovsk.
It was late in the autumn of 1912. I started out with little food, and was soon exhausted. It was not an easy task to get to Alexandrovsk. The road lay across a river and through an island, connected by ferries.
On the way I made the acquaintance of a woman, Avdotia Ivanovna Kitova, who was also bound for the prison. Her husband was there too, and she told me why. He was drunk when the dog-catcher came to take away his favourite dog, and he shot the dog-catcher; now he was sentenced to exile, and she had decided to go along with him, with her two children, who were in Irkutsk.
At the Central Prison I received another shock. I could not be admitted without a pass. I did not know that it was necessary to have a pass I declared. But the warden in charge, a wizened old man, with a flowing white beard, shouted angrily at me, “No! No! Get out of here. It’s against the law; you can’t be admitted. Go to Irkutsk and come back with a pass, and we will let you in.”
“But I have journeyed nearly seventy miles to see him,” I pleaded, in tears. “I am worn out and hungry. Allow me to see him just for five minutes—only five short minutes. Is there no mercy in your heart for a weak woman?”
With this I broke down and became hysterical. The harsh little warden, and his assistants in the office, became frightened. Yasha was brought in for a brief interview. The few minutes that we were allowed to pass in each other’s presence gave us new strength. He told me of his experiences, and I told him of mine, and we decided that I should go to the Governor-General, Kniazev, to entreat his mercy.
It was not till late evening that I started back to the railway station. I reached the river at dusk and managed to catch a ferry to the island. But it was dark when I landed there, and I lost my way trying to cross the island to the other ferry.
I was cold, hungry, exhausted. My feet were swollen from wandering for several hours in a frantic effort to find the right path. When at last I got to the other side it must have been about midnight. I saw the lights across the water and called with all my remaining strength for the ferry. But there was no response. Only the wind, shrieking through the woods behind me, echoed my cries. I kept calling all night, but in vain.
When it dawned I gathered my last energies, stood up and called out again. This time I was observed, and a canoe was sent after me. Unfortunately, it was in charge of a boy. I was too ill to move, and he could not carry me to it. I had to creep on all-fours to the boat. With the boy’s aid, I finally found myself in the canoe. It took him a long time to ferry me across, and I was in a state of collapse by the time we reached the other side. I was taken to the Kuznetsov Hospital in Irkutsk again, where I lay dangerously ill for nearly two months. During this time I lost all my hair and half my weight.
After my visit to Yasha he naturally told his prison mates of it, being proud of my loyalty to him, but when days and weeks passed by, and I did not return, his comrades began to tease him about me.
“A fine baba is yours. You may indeed be proud of her,” they would torment him. “She has found some other husband. A lot of use she has for you, a prisoner. They are all alike, yours and ours.” Yasha took such jesting very much to heart. He was in complete ignorance of my whereabouts and finally made up his mind that I had betrayed him.
As soon as I was released from the hospital, I went to the
