De-Kastri's military commander, learning of our arrival, kindly invited the three of us to supper. Having not foreseen being guests there, we hadn't brought clean clothes and had to go to the commander's in our work jackets. True, they’d managed to dry out after the evening's storminess, but were stiff and white from sea-salt because of this.

The officer and his young spouse proved to be superlative people. They followed Russian literature attentively and subscribed to foreign journals. Even the latest news from the capital, from which they’d arrived not long beforehand, suffused their conversation. Sitting with them deep into the night, I completely lost track of time and forgot I was actually in the depths of Siberia, far from the distant cities and forests, and my imagination carried me to sophisticated Russia where, under the powerful influence of fashionable ideas, I had, for a time, been swept up by the crowd and tried with passion to join the struggle against traditional ways of life.

They invited us to stay the night, but a gathering thunderstorm and powerful winds reminded me of my responsibilities, and I hastened to the steamer.

Next day, we took a seaside stroll with our new acquaintances along the bay, to the local lighthouse four miles from the village. On this outing, I became quite familiar with the bay, which can be called Sakhalin's harbor because all ocean vessels, during the Aleksandrovsk run, will, upon the approach of a storm from the southwest or north, immediately seek shelter in De-Kastri. Thus, on that same stormy day we had crossed the Tatar Strait, a steamer that had met with a small accident along the way came in just after us. Convicts fleeing Sakhalin try to sail to De-Kastri, because from there, they can easily reach Sofiisk on the Amur.

The lighthouse's warden, the sailor Sp., had many times witnessed the arrival of fugitive laborers, or vagabonds, as they were usually called there.

“Most of all,” he told us, “ya happens to see them unfortunates in springtime. Believe you me, some’ll sail on an ice floe.