His destination was about two thousand miles distant. The incidents of the journey were few and much of the same character. Charity and sympathy were shown him by people of every class. Travelers of distinction, especially ladies, pursued him with offers of assistance and money, which he would not accept. The only gifts which he did not refuse were the food and drink brought him by the peasants where they stopped to change horses: wherever there was a halt the good people plied him with tea, brandy and simple dainties, which he gratefully accepted. At one station a man in the uniform of the Russian civil service timidly offered him a parcel wrapped in a silk handkerchief, saying, "Accept this from my saint." Piotrowski, repelled by the sight of the uniform, shook his head. The other flushed: "You are a Pole, and do not understand our customs. This is my birthday, and on this day, above all others, I should share what I have with the unfortunate. Pray accept it in the name of my patron saint." He could not resist so Christian an appeal. The parcel contained bread, salt and some money: the last he handed over to the guards, who in any case would not have let him keep it: he broke the bread with its donor. His guards were almost the only persons with whom he had to do who showed themselves insensible to his pain and sorrow. They were divided between their fears of not arriving on the day fixed, in which case they would be flogged, and of his dying of fatigue on the route, when they would fare still worse. The apprehension of his suicide beset them: at the ferries or fords which they crossed each of them held him by an arm lest he should drown himself, and all his meat was given to him minced, to be eaten with a spoon, as he was not to be trusted for an instant with a knife. Thus they traveled night and day for three weeks, only stopping to change horses and take their meals; yet he esteemed himself lucky not to have been sent with a gang of convicts, chained to some atrocious malefactor, or to have been ordered to make the journey on foot, like his countryman, Prince Sanguzsko. At last they reached Omsk, the head-quarters of Prince Gortchakoff, then governor-general of Western Siberia. By some informality in the mode of his transportation, the interpretation of Piotrowski's sentence depended solely on this man: he might be sent to work in one of the government manufactories, or to the mines, the last, worst dread of a Siberian exile. While awaiting the decision he was in charge of a gay, handsome young officer, who treated him with great friendliness, and in the course of their conversation, which turned chiefly on Siberia, showed him a map of the country. The prisoner devoured it with his eyes, tried to engrave it on his memory, asked innumerable questions about roads and water-courses, and betrayed so much agitation that the young fellow noticed it, and exclaimed, "Ah! don't think of escape. Too many of your countrymen have tried it, and those are fortunate who, tracked on every side, famished, desperate, have been able to put an end to themselves before being retaken, for if they are, then comes the knout and a life of misery beyond words. In Heaven's name, give up that thought!" The commandant of the fortress paid him a short official visit, and exclaimed repeatedly, "How sad! how sad! to come back when you were free-in a foreign country!" The chief of police, a hard, dry, vulture-like man, asked why he had dared to return without the czar's permission. "I could not bear my homesickness," replied the prisoner. "O native country!" said the Russian in a softened voice, "how dear thou art!" After various official interviews he was taken to the governor-general's ante-chamber, where he found a number of clerks, most of whom were his exiled compatriots and received him warmly. While he was talking with them a door opened, and Gortchakoff stood on the threshold: he fixed his eyes on the prisoner for some moments, and withdrew without a word. An hour of intense anxiety followed, and then an officer appeared, who announced that he was consigned to the distilleries of Ekaterininski-Zavod, some two hundred miles farther north.

Ekaterininski-Zavod is a miserable village of a couple of hundred small houses on the river Irtish, in the midst of a wide plain. Its inhabitants are all in some way connected with the government distillery: they are the descendants of criminals formerly transported. Piotrowski, after a short interview with the inspector of the works, was entered on the list of convicts and sent to the guard-house. "He is to work with his feet in irons," added the inspector. This unusual severity was in consequence of a memorandum in Prince Gortchakoff's own writing appended to the prisoner's papers: "Piotrowski must be watched with especial care." The injunction was unprecedented, and impressed the director with the prisoner's importance. Before being taken to his work he was surrounded by his fellow-countrymen, young men of talent and promise, who were there, like himself, for political reasons. Their emotion was extreme: they talked rapidly and eagerly, exhorting him to patience and silence, and to do nothing to incur corporal punishment, which was the mode of keeping the workmen in order, so that in time he might be promoted, like themselves, from hard labor to office-work. At the guard-house he found a crowd of soldiers, among whom were many Poles, incorporated into the standing army of Siberia for having taken up arms for their country. This is one of the mildest punishments for that offence. They seized every pretext for speaking to him, to ask what was going on in Poland, and whether there were any hopes for her. Overcome by fatigue and misery, he sat down upon a bench, where he remained sunk in the gloomiest thoughts until accosted by a man of repulsive aspect, branded on the face—the Russian practice with criminals of the worst sort—who said abruptly, "Get up and go to work." It was the overseer, himself a former convict. "O my God!" exclaims Piotrowski, "Thou alone didst hear the bitter cry of my soul when this outcast first spoke to me as my master."

Before going to work his irons were struck off, thanks to the instant entreaties of his compatriots: he was then given a broom and shovel and set to clear rubbish and filth off the roof of a large unfinished building. On one side was a convict of the lowest order, with whom he worked—on the other, the soldier who mounted guard over them. To avoid the indignity of chastisement or reproof—indeed, to escape notice altogether—he bent his whole force to his task, without raising his head, or even his eyes, but the iron entered into his soul and he wept.

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