iaison_, if not marriage. Every year from three to six
"politicals" arrive in each of the settlements north of Yakutsk.

[Footnote 28: Rest-houses for convict gangs along the great post-road.]

An empty hut was set apart for our use: a tumble-down _yurta_ of mud
with the usual ice-windows, which necessitated the use of candles even
on the brightest day. But it contained two rooms and a kitchen, and was
weather-proof, so we lived in comparative luxury. Meals were provided
for us at Katcherofsky's hospitable board, and on the evening of our
arrival we sat down to a supper to which the kind-hearted old
_ispravnik_ had invited several "politicals." And here, for the second
time, I witnessed the incongruous sight of a Chief of Police amicably
hobnobbing with the exiles in his custody. And when one of the latter
remarked at table, "I can always feel cheerful in Katcherofsky's house,
_even in Verkhoyansk_," I could well believe that our genial and
good-natured host was looked upon more in the light of a friend than a
guardian by both men and women of the free command. It was a strange but
enjoyable evening, and the _menu_ of delicious _sterlet_ brought from
the Lena, roast venison, and ice-cream, accompanied by a very fair
champagne, was hardly one which you would expect to find in these frozen
wastes. Coffee and _nalivka_, a liquor made of the wild raspberries
which grow freely around here, concluded the last decent repast we were
likely to enjoy for some months to come. Only one displeasing memory do
I retain of that otherwise pleasant supper-party: I smoked my last
cigar!

There were under a dozen exiles in all here, of whom two were women. One
of the latter was my neighbour at supper;--Madame Abramovitch, a fragile
little woman, whom delicate features and dark, expressive eyes would
have rendered beautiful, had not years of mental and physical suffering
aged and hardened the almost girlish face. Abramovitch, her husband, a
tall, fine-looking man of Jewish type, was only thirty-two years old,
but his life since the age of twenty-one had been passed in captivity
either in Russian prisons or as an exile in Siberia. Abramovitch and his
wife were shortly to be released, and it was pathetic to hear them
babble like children about their approaching freedom, and of how they
would revel in the sight of Warsaw, and enjoy its restaurants and
theatres, and even a ride in the electric cars! I visited them next day
in their dark and m