Our material condition was considerably more comfortable now than it had been in prison. Besides the means of livelihood that had hitherto been available—rations from the State and money sent from home—many of us could now earn something by private exertion. We still preserved our organisation as when in prison, with certain modifications rendered necessary by our new circumstances; we still formed an _artèl_ and elected a _stàrosta_ to arrange the details of our common life. Of course, our domestic economy had considerably extended its sphere; we had now much to think of that had not entered into our consideration before. Autumn brought a good deal of heavy labour for all able-bodied men. Trees had to be felled and carted to serve as winter fuel, and then the wood had to be chopped small for use. In the winter the hay needed for our cattle had to be brought in, for we possessed six cows and four horses. In the spring we looked after our gardens, and in the summer we made hay in the meadows. Cooking was still managed in common, groups of us carrying it out in turn. There was always plenty for all hands to do, and the work was often very hard. I myself found the labour of the winter season extremely severe. It meant rising at three or four o’clock in the morning to harness the horses—a task difficult and disagreeable enough always in the Siberian cold, and a perfect misery in the small hours of the morning—and then driving the sledge ten or twelve versts, loading it with hay, and finishing our job so as to return home by nightfall. Two of us at a time had to load and fetch home four great waggon-loads of hay. Naturally we were very clumsy over the unaccustomed labour, and it happened often enough that ropes would break and the hay get scattered, or that the horses would stray away. In our heavy sheepskins and felt boots we had each as much as we could manage in conducting two heavy waggons on the homeward journey; and despite the extreme cold we used often to be bathed in perspiration. Yet the hard physical work had a charm of its own. It gave one a quite peculiar sensation to be driving along in the dark over the smooth, white surface of the snow, on and on into the depths of the forest. The profoundest silence reigned everywhere, broken by the crackling of the snow under the horses’ hoofs and the runners of the sledge, and sometimes by the distant howling of a wolf. Myriads of stars sparkled in the firmament, and not a trace of man’s existence was anywhere to be seen. But the cruel cold, increasing in severity towards dawn, would soon drive away all poetical ideas. The frost penetrated our sheepskins, and we felt as if we were being pricked all over our bodies with sharp needles. Often the brandy in our flasks would freeze, and although we took all possible precautions, the glass would split and the spirit be left in a frozen lump. [Illustration: COTTAGE SHARED BY “POLITICALS” IN THE KARA PENAL SETTLEMENT To face page 302 ]