Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 1.djvu/338

316 everyday life. It was enough to make one sick at heart to see, subjected to such treatment and undergoing such suffering, hundreds of women and children who had committed no crime, but had merely shown their love and devotion by going into Siberian exile with the husbands, the fathers, or the brothers who were dear to them.

As we walked through the narrow gangways from one end of the shed to the other, we were besieged by unhappy men and women who desired to make complaints or petitions.

"Your High Nobility," said a heavy-eyed, anxious-looking man to the warden, "it is impossible to sleep here nights on account of the cold, the crowding, and the crying of babies. Can't something be done?"

"No, brother," replied the warden kindly; "I can't do anything. You will go on the road pretty soon, and then it will be easier."

"Dai Bogh! " [God grant it!] said the heavy-eyed man as he turned with a mournful look to his wife and a little girl who sat near him on the sleeping-bench.

"Bátiushka!" [My little father! My benefactor!] cried a pale-faced woman with an infant at her naked breast; "won't you, for God's sake, let me sleep in the bath-house with my baby? It's so cold here nights; I can't keep him warm."

"No, mátushka" [my little mother], said the warden; " I can't let you sleep in the bath-house. It is better for you here."

Several other Women made in succession the same request, and were refused in the same way; and I finally asked the warden, who seemed to be a kind-hearted and sympathetic man, why he could not let a dozen or two of these unfortunate women, who had young babies, go to the bath-house to sleep. "It is cold here now," I said, " and it must be much worse at night. These thin walls of cotton-sheeting don't keep out at all the raw night air."