IX Tym or Tymi - Lieutenant Boshnyak - Polyakov - Upper Armudan - Lower Armudan - Derbinskoye - A Journey on the Tym - Uskovo - The Gypsies - A Joumey into the Taiga - Voskresenskoye I I 5
X Rykovskoye - The Local Prison - The Meteorological Station of M. N. Galkin-Vrasky - Palevo - Mikryukov - Valzy and Longari - Malo- Tymovo - Andreye-lvanovskoye 131
XI A Projected District - The Stone Age - Was There Free Colonization? - The Gilyaks - Their Numerical Composition, Appearance, Physique, Food, Clothing, Dwellings, Hygiene - Their Character - Attempts at Their Russification - Orochi 141
XII My Departure for the South - A Jovial Lady - The Western Shore - The Flux - Mauka - Krilon - Aniva - The Korsakov Post - New Acquaintances - A Northeaster - The Climate of Southern Sakhalin - The Korsakov Prison - The Fire Wagons I 57
Poro-an-Tomari, Muravyevsky Post - First, Second and Third Drop - Solovyevka - Lyutoga - Goly Mys - Mitsulka - Listvenichnoye - Khomutovka - Bolshaya Yelan - Vladimirovka - The Farm, or Firm - Lugovoye - Popovskiye Yurty - Berezniki - Kresty - Bolshoye and Maloye
Takoe - Galkino-Vraskoye - Dubky - Naybuchi - The Sea 173
Tarayka - Free Settlers - Their Failures - The Ainus, Boundaries of Their Dispersion, Enumeration, Appearance, Food, Clothing, Habitations, Temperament - The ĵapanese - Kusun-Kotan - The Japanese Consulate 192
Convict Householders - Transfer to Settler Status - Choice of Sites for New Settlements - Housekeeping - Half-Ownen - Transfer to Peasant Status - Resettlement of Peasants-formerly-convicts on the Mainland - Life in the Settlements - Proximity of the Prison - Analysis of the Population
by Birthplace and State - Village Authorities 2 I I
XVI Composition of the Convict Population According to Sex - The F^ale Probl^ - Convict Women and Female Settlers - Male and Female Cohabitants - Free Women
XVII Composition of the Population by Age - Family Status of Convicts - Marriages - Birth Rate - Sakhalin Children 248
XVIII Occupatiom of Convicts - Agriculture - Hunting - Fishing - Migratory Fish: Whales and Herring - Prison Fishing - Craftsmanship 265
Convicts' Food - What and How the Prisoners Eat - Clothing - Church - School -
Literacy 284
The Free Population - The Lower Ranks of the Local Military Command - Guards - The Intelligentsia 303
The Morality of the Exile Population - Crimes - Investigation and Trial - Punishment -
Birch Rods and Lashes - The Death Penalty 320
XXII Escapees on Sakhalin - Reasons for Escapes - Composition of Escapees by Origin, Class and Others 341
XXIII Diseases and Mortality of the Convict Population - The Medical Organization - The Hospital in Alexandrovsk 359
Introduction
i
o n january i 6, i 890, his thirtieth birthday, Anton Chekhov was at the height of his fame. Astonishingly handsome, quiet-mannered, gentle, ironical, in full enjoy- ment of his genius and with no trace of arrogance, he seemed to be one of those men who are especially favored by the gods to accomplish everything they set out to do. In five years he had reached a dazzling position in Russian literature as the acknowledged master of the short story and as a playwright of indisputable power. He had already written most of the short stories for which he would be remembered, and many of the plays, and there was no in- dication that the tide was ebbing. On the contrary, he was in the full possession of the marvelous instrument he had created, and knew exactly how to play it. He had received the Pushkin Prize from the Imperial Academy of Sciences, and he had been elected a member of the Society of Lovers of Russian Literature. These were rare honors, and although he half despised his growing fame, he derived pleasure from them. It was not only that he was at the height of his fame and of his powers, but he was aware of being loved as few writers are ever loved. People were happy in his presence, and there appeared to be no dark shadows.
To have known Chekhov in those days was to have known genius robed in the garments of an extraordinary humanity. Over six feet tall, and so slender that he seemed taller, with a mane of thick brown hair, fine eyes, a straight nose, a sensual mouth and a well-trimmed beard, he looked like a young Viking. There was nothing in the least melan-
xi
choly and abstracted about his appearance. He enjoyed life passionately, entertained his friends continually, never hap- pier than when he collected flocks of actors, actresses, circus clowns, professional men and vagabonds of all kinds in his country house, where he regaled them with a running fire of jokes and ludicrous improvisations, treating them with princely hospitality. He enjoyed a number of liaisons with young women, who did not always write their mem- oirs. He had a steady income, and if it should ever happen that the vein of literature should dry up, he could always return to his medical practice. He was, and knew himself to be, the darling of the gods. Nevenheless, wherever he looked, the dark shadows were pressing in on him.
Although outwardly gay and carefree, confident of his powers and generous with his gifts of friendship and com- passion, he was strangely restless. There was no single name for this form of restlessness which increasingly took hold of him, like a fever. From time to time he would examine it, like a doctor examining a clinical chart, and he would offcr himself or his close friends elaborate explanations of the nature of the disease, but nearly always mockingly, with happy improvisations, as though it would go away if he laughed at it. He was too sensible, too down-to-earth, to take himself or his m^^s seriously. He was profoundly dissatisfied with his art, his fame and Russian society. At the same time he enjoyed his art, relished his fame and found himself at ease on all levels of Russian society, although he was oppressed by the poverty and ignorance of the Russian peasants and by the srupidity of their masters and of all bureaucrats. This was a dissatisfaction he shared with nearly all the educated men of his time, and though it weighed heavily on him, he found it no more oppressive on the eve of his thirtieth birthday than at any other period of his life.
What did oppress him more than he ever dared to ad- mit was the death of his brother Nikolay the previous June. Nikolay was a gifted painter who had thrown his talents away, a wastrel with a common-law. wife, a drunkard who deliberately set himself to live like a bohemian. Charming, stupid and uncultivated, Nikolay was continually borrowing money from his brother, spending it on women and drink. He was already dying of typhoid fever and tuberculosis when Chekhov brought him to a rented estate in the Ukraine, hoping his diseases would be cured or alleviated in the dry summer air. He kept watch by the bedside, hop- ing against hope, reminding himself that miracles had hap- pened before and might happen again, his affection at war with his medical knowledge, for he knew the diseases were incurable. Most of the Chekhov family gathered on the small estate and Alexey Suvorin, the publisher, came down from St. Petersburg to share the long vigil. When at last Nikolay died, Chekhov's grief shocked his friends. "Poor Nikolay is dead," he wrote. "I am stupid, extinguished. I am bored to death, and there is not a penny-worth of poetry in life, and I have no desires." Quite suddenly he seemed to be drifting aimlessly in a sea of uncertainties. There was nothing he wanted to do, nowhere he wanted to go. Nikolay was the first of the large family to die, and he seemed to feel that his family, which gave meaning to his life, was in some curious way threatened. The "vaga- bond artist" had gone, and left a gaping hole in their lives.