Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/197

Rh young manhood. His eyes were clear and blue; his thick, light-brown hair was ill cut, and rumpled a little in a boyish way over the high forehead; the full blond beard gave manliness and dignity to his well-shaped head, and his frank, open, good-tempered face, flushed a little with heat and wet with perspiration, seemed to me to be the face of a warm-hearted and impulsive but, at the same time, strong and well-balanced man. It was, at any rate, a face strangely out of harmony with all my preconceived ideas of a nihilist.

Mr. Pávlovski introduced me to the young artist as an American traveler, who was interested in Siberian scenery, who had heard of his sketches, and who would like very much to see some of them. Mr. Lobonófski greeted me quietly but cordially, and at once brought out the sketches—apologizing, however, for their imperfections, and asking us to remember that they had been made in prison, on coarse writing-paper, and that the out-door views were limited to landscapes that could be seen from prison and étape windows. The sketches were evidently the work of an untrained hand, and were mostly representations of prison and étape interiors, portraits of political exiles, and such bits of towns and villages as could be seen from the windows of the various cells that the artist had occupied in the course of his journey to Siberia. They all had, however, a certain rude force and fidelity, and one of them served as material for the sketch illustrating the Tiumén prison-yard on page 85.

My conversation with Mr. Lobonófski at this interview did not touch political questions, and was confined, for the most part, to topics suggested by the sketches. He described his journey to Siberia just as he would have described it if he had made it voluntarily, and, but for an occasional reference to a prison or an étape, there was nothing in the recital to remind one that he was a nihilist and an exile. His manner was quiet, modest, and frank; he followed any conversational lead with ready tact, and although I watched