The old Maltzev prison was built exclusively for women, and had a capacity of fifty. But in reality the number of prisoners there was never less than 100, and sometimes reached 120. We were the first politicals sent there.

The six of us were put in one cell. It was about fifteen feet long and ten feet wide. Six beds covered with coarse, gray blankets, a long table, and two benches on the sides were all its contents. It had two windows, from which we could see the stone wall.

The cold, the dampness in our cell, and the food which consisted of black bread, _balandá_,[30] and tea without sugar, were not conducive to good health, and Spiridonova felt worse and worse. There was no hospital in the prison, and we prevailed upon the governor to summon the doctor from Gorni Zerentúi, about four miles away. He came, and only looked at us sorrowfully.

“What can I do?” he said. “Everything depends upon the chief of kátorga, Mehtus. Send for him, and ask him to transfer the sick to solitary cells: they are warmer and drier.”

We immediately sent a petition to Mehtus, who lived in Gorni Zerentúi. A couple of weeks later he arrived. He entered our cell without a greeting, and stood without looking at us. In answer to our request to transfer Spiridonova to a solitary cell he made a curt and coarse reply, and went out. After this we never asked him for anything.[31]

Time passed slowly in the Maltzev prison. Days, months, years stretched into one long and weary monotony. At first we were only six politicals there, but gradually our number increased by new arrivals from all parts of Russia, and soon we were forty. Their arrival was the only break in the monotony of our existence. But the news which they brought and their own spirits soon faded in the atmosphere of the prison, and they, in turn, waited for others to come and revive their dying hopes.

The first few years after the revolution Russia yet remembered her sons and daughters who were immured in the prisons of remote Siberia. But the constant persecution and misfortunes at home made them forget the living corpses who were buried in the frozen wilderness. Communications and financial assistance came less and less frequently, and finally ceased altogether.

Those who were sentenced for a term of years counted the days and months. They knew that if only they should be able to serve out their sentence they would see a glimpse of freedom—as much as one can see in Siberian exile.[32] But what awaited us, sent here for life?

The belief in the speedy liberation of Russia was being slowly crushed by the overwhelming grief which filled our souls. “How many such years will pass, one as dreary as the other?” I often asked myself. Whether I circled aimlessly our small prison yard on our daily walk or tossed about on the hard bed in the long sleepless nights, these thoughts tormented me unceasingly. Lying awake of nights I often heard the whispered conversation of my comrades in the corners of the semi-dark cell. They could not bear the oppressive silence of the prison, and would begin to speak of their past life, of their dreams and wishes. But to me it seemed that what they were dreaming about would never return, that all was lost in this abyss of misery and degradation.

Bad as our position was, that of the common-law convicts was still worse. The Siberian administration is to a certain extent afraid to do to the politicals what they do to these unfortunate women. There was a barrack just outside the prison wall in which women ex-convicts lived. Half of this barrack was occupied by soldiers, who, following the example of their superiors, perpetrated most atrocious acts of violence upon these defenseless women. During the last year of my stay there two died almost simultaneously from the effects of such mistreatment. There were cases when women were killed when they resisted. A young Tartar woman with a two-year-old child was strangled on the first night after her release from prison.

I do not know of a single instance when the administration or the soldiers were punished for these crimes. We reported these cases to the governor, but he never investigated, and I am sure that our reports never left his office. These horrors made our life there a perpetual torment, and we lived under their constant impression.

The most trying time we experienced when the higher administration came to inspect our kátorga. Their inspection did us no good, and only added to our suffering. To show that discipline was strictly enforced in his prison our governor used to put us in chains—those of us who were sentenced for life—and keep us thus for weeks. The only advantage we derived from their occasional visits was that for a few days previous to their arrival our food was somewhat better than ordinarily, as the local authorities were then afraid to appropriate the money which the government allowed for the maintenance of the prison. The robbing of the convicts in Siberian prisons has become a tradition, and is practised on a large scale. The governor of the Maltzev prison, Pokrovski, sold not only cloth and linen which the convicts were supposed to wear, but even foodstuffs and firewood. Large sums of money were sent from St. Petersburg to repair the building, but we continued to freeze because the governor preferred to pocket the money than use it for repairs.

There was only one bright spot in our dark and cheerless life, and this was our warm friendship for one another. This friendship fed our sorrowing hearts, and sustained us in the hours of trial and affliction.