While in the Petersburg government-offices the question had to be settled as to carrying out the proclamation—who was to benefit by it, and who must be excluded from its operation—the authorities in Siberia had another care upon them: how to avert all danger from the path of the Heir-Apparent, as he journeyed through a land where dwelt so many embittered victims of Tsarism. The gentlemen of the official world solved this problem eventually in a simple fashion: all along the Prince’s route we (busy with our hopes of freedom!) were to be locked up for the time being; and though Kara was a good fifty versts distant from the high-road by which the journey of state was made, we were shut up in prison the day before the Cesarèvitch[108] passed, and only set free again a day after he had got safely through our neighbourhood. Footnote 108: A familiar form of transliteration is employed here, but more correct would be Tsesarèvitch.—_Trans._ For long afterwards we awaited with the greatest excitement the advent of the post every week or ten days, always hoping that some decision as to the scope of the manifesto would arrive. But government departments take their time; those who amused themselves with thoughts of the Tsar’s grace had still to endure uncertainty as best they could. A whole year elapsed before we received the long-expected news, and then it was disappointing enough; nearly half the inhabitants of the Kara penal settlement were excepted from the operation of the manifesto, the rest had but a very short curtailment of their sentences. I was among those who got nothing at all, and was obliged to reconcile myself to the thought of another four years in Kara. It was bitter to have one’s hopes thus destroyed.