Page:Morgan Philips Price - Siberia (1912).djvu/115

 Rh mingle socially; as subjects of the Tsar they live their everyday life on terms of civic equality, enjoying the same privileges and bearing the same public burdens.

Perhaps the most interesting acquaintance that I made in Minusinsk, and one to which I attached the greatest value, was that of a certain gentleman who, on account of his previous history, his social isolation, and his high culture, was surrounded by a peculiar halo of tragic mystery. Formerly he had held high office in St Petersburg, but he was supposed to have become involved in certain affairs connected with secret police spies. Trials behind closed doors ensued, and, falling into Imperial displeasure, he had been compelled to live in this remote part of the Empire, socially ostracized. Not only was he a man of position and culture, but also a man of wealth. In the land to which he was exiled, however, money could not create what he formerly enjoyed in the centre of European civilization. Although he and his family lived in a large house with many well-appointed rooms, they had no servant now to attend to their wants. Hastily laid meals and untidy rooms contrasted in my imagination with what their surroundings must have been in the political and diplomatic circles of St Petersburg's society. This is the type of exile to whom one's sympathy most extends. The political exile from the peasant class or lower grade of urban citizen finds in Siberia an opening for his enterprise in a new land of riches and plenty. But to the cultivated man, who has moved in the social circles of the European capitals, exile to such a place as this must be little short of social death. When I went to call upon him he