Here we found many things to interest us. There was a horse that refused sugar from Nina but accepted, to my great delight, bread and salt from me. There were fancy chickens, and, best of all, a sort of see-saw on which I condescended to accept Nina's invitation to play. We stood as straight as possible on the board which was balanced on a log, and as it went up and down jumped alternately into the air, each time going a little higher. Nina was not at all afraid, and despite a peculiar seriousness about her, we were well acquainted when supper was announced. The table, set with more good things than I had ever seen before, was in a long dining-room. Soon everybody was laughing and joking, everybody except Nina's mother. It seemed to me that she was not like the rest of us but I could not have told why. The supper lasted a long time and when we returned to the big living-room, the piano, which stood on one side, was opened and Lidia Ivanovna, the lady in gray, consented to play some Russian airs from Glinka's opera, "Life of the Tzar." Shortly after, both she and her little daughter as well as my aunt's cousin left, pleading the weariness still felt by the strangers from long travel. When they had gone, Mongalov turned to the former artillery officer, whose name was Kuzmin, and asked, "Where did you meet Lidia Ivanovna?" "She came with a caravan of prisoners sent from St. Petersburg." (Petrograd.) "I am told that she is looking for her husband who was sent to Siberia a few years ago as a political exile.[16] If she can find him, she wishes to share his fate." Here I exclaimed impulsively: "It ought to be easy to find him. The government officials can surely tell her where he is." Kuzmin smiled bitterly. "They can, perhaps, if they wish. You must remember, however, that Siberia is no little state. When I came here, it was with many thousands of prisoners, mostly Poles who had fought for their country's independence, and they are now so scattered that you might not meet a dozen in a lifetime." "How big is Siberia?" I asked. "In figures, it is more than five million square miles, but see that map hanging on the wall," said the old man with some eagerness, as if glad of the change in the conversation, "and see that little dot. That stands for the biggest city you know, the one you are now in, Habarovsk." "That little dot!" I exclaimed in surprise, for no one had ever explained a map to me before. "This waving line," continued Kuzmin, "is the Amur River." Again I stared incredulously. How could a little line stand for the very wide Amur whose waters ran from horizon to horizon! "Now that is only a small part of Siberia," said my new teacher. "From here at Habarovsk to the Ural Mountains, which separate Siberia from Russia, it takes two months to travel both day and night in a carriage." "Tell me some other things about Siberia," I begged.