Once more, I had to appear before the governor. Seeing me, he hurried to congratulate me, invited me into his cabinet, and spoke at length about the war, the Amur Territory, Manchuria, and even Sakhalin. He promised all assistance for my path ahead. He asked that I telegraph him in case of any misunderstandings during my Siberian ordeals. Upon parting, he wished me well.

Long farewells mean many tears. I had been getting escorted off Sakhalin for two weeks. Each day, in not just one but another place, kisses, embraces, and good wishes were repeated. Yet, I cannot remember how, during my final goodbye to comrades on the wharf, I found myself aboard the steam cutter. One mourner, A. V., a widower since his first year on Sakhalin, could not keep from sobbing out loud…

Upon parting from comrades, I was struck as much by sadness as by pity for them. Most were good, kind people, yet, having been carried away by notions of improving humankind, their hearts had swayed them too far and… they ended up on Sakhalin. There, these castaways from Russia were held in low esteem by the law-abiding class. Neither in the past nor present nor future did they have any sort of foothold where their broken hearts could find peace…

Besides myself, leaving Sakhalin aboard the Velox was a certain young man who’d worked in the coal mining office, as well as the Rykovsk exile Ia— — v's widow and her five children, two of whom were five-month-old twins. The steamer's crew packed us into some cabins and we mentally thanked the captain for his courtesy. However, his attentiveness later proved quite costly in Vladivostok.

I was in a hurry to board the vessel, or, better put, in a hurry to get away from Sakhalin: the steamer had been at Dué for too much of the day.

Despite not wanting anymore to turn my attention to things Sakhalin, I unwittingly began watching some penal laborers at work. They were loading coal under double supervision. On one side, the steamer's crew was keenly making sure they didn't set anything aside on the shore, on the other, the administrator I— — v and guards were attentively watching so that no penal laborer purchased a bottle of vodka from the sailors.