Page:Siberia and the Exile System Vol 2.djvu/183

Rh the threads of social and official relationship in the penal settlement where we found ourselves; avoid manifestations of interest in the political convicts; make a careful study

 1. A TELEGRAPH STATION AND PART OF LOWER DIGGINGS 2. HOUSES OF THE POLITICAL FREE COMMAND 3. ROAD TO THE POLITICAL PRISON

of our environment, and then wait—maintaining meanwhile, as Ladislaw says in "Middlemarch," an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime chances." Nothing was to be gained and everything might be risked by premature or over-hasty action. For three or four days, therefore, we did not attempt to do anything except to visit the common-criminal prisons and the mines, talk with the officials who called