TRANSIENTS AND TUNDRAS
OUR prison colony constantly increased, as new political prisoners were brought in, some of them already sentenced and others held to await their trials. As there was nothing to curb the excesses of the revolutionary groups after the Union of Workers had been dissolved, acts of terror, agitation against the State and attempts against the depositaries of Government funds to secure money for revolutionary purposes became rather frequent occurrences in the territory of the Far East. Their presence and their despondency reacted strongly upon all of us; for you must know that a prison is very excitable. Spread the news that a man condemned to death is within its walls, and the spirit of it changes at once. A morbid concentration sets in, which often runs into despair or real madness.
I remember that one morning a good-looking, fairhaired young man, named Arsenieff, was brought in. Perhaps twenty-five years old, he already carried a look of profound sadness in his dreamy blue eyes. That same day he was tried and condemned to death. His story was simple and easily understood by anyone who knew the Russian life. The gendarmes shot his brother, a revolutionist, in Blagoveschensk, whereupon Arsenieff shot the commander of the gendarmes in revenge and fled to Harbin, where he was discovered and arrested.
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