Although we had had no personal experience of these various dangers, most of us were so well aware of them that no plan of escape during the journey entered into our calculations; but two of our comrades could not resist the temptation to weave schemes of the kind. These were Maria Kalyùshnaya and the student Yordan—the former condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude, and the latter “administratively” exiled to Eastern Siberia for five years. They were both young, barely twenty, and their longing for freedom was overpowering. None of their projects of flight were practicable, however, and they did not attempt to carry them into execution. Both these young creatures died in prison; Maria Kalyùshnaya’s story, which I shall have to relate further on, being a specially sad one. We had many opportunities, during our long march, of becoming acquainted with the people whose dwellings are beside the great highway. A certain air of comfort and well-being was often visible about them, and some of the larger settlements had the pleasant appearance of a Russian provincial town. Roomy, well-built houses, occasionally of more than one story, decorated with carving and provided with tidy hedges and gates, lined the road sometimes for several versts. Curtains and flower-pots showed in the windows; the rooms were often carpeted and furnished comfortably, sometimes even exhibiting the luxury of Austrian bentwood furniture. The cattle, so far as we could see, were finer and better kept than is usual among the Russian peasantry.