The round window of my chamber looked out upon the prison-yard. It was
very high from the ground, but by placing the table against the wall
and mounting upon it, I could see everything that was going on in the
courtyard. Beneath the window, under the slope of the roof, the doves
had built themselves a nest, and when I set about looking out of my
window down into the court below, they began cooing above my head.
[1] The original title of this tale was "Zazubrina." Written in 1897.
I had lots of time to make the acquaintance of the inhabitants of the
prison-yard from my coign of vantage, and I knew already that the
merriest member of that grim and grey population went by the name of
Zazubrina.
He was a square-set, stout little fellow, with a ruddy face and a high
forehead, from beneath which his large bright, lively eyes sparkled
incessantly.
His cap he wore at the back of his head, his ears stuck out on both
sides of his shaven head as if in joke; he never fastened the strings
of his shirt-collar, he never buttoned his vest, and every movement
of his muscles gave you to understand that he was a merry soul and a
pronounced enemy of anger and sadness.
Always laughing, alert and noisy, he was the idol of the yard; he was
always surrounded by a group of grey comrades, and he would always
be laughing and regaling them with all sorts of curious pranks,
brightening up their dull and sorrowful life with his hearty, genuine
gaiety....
On one occasion he appeared at the door of the prison-quarters ready to
go for a walk with three rats whom he had dexterously harnessed as if
they were horses. Sometimes his inventiveness took a cruel form. Thus,
for instance, he once, somehow, glued to the wall the long hair of
one of the prisoners, a mere lad, who was sitting on the floor asleep
against the wall, and, when his hair had dried, suddenly awoke him.
The lad quickly leaped to his feet, and clapping his slim lean hands
to the back of his head, fell weeping to the ground. The prisoners
laughed, and Zazubrina was satisfied. Afterwards--I saw it through the
window--he fell a comforting the lad, who had left a no inconsiderable
tuft of hair on the wall.
Besides Zazubrina, there was yet another favourite in the prison--a
plump, reddish kitten, a tiny, playful little animal, pampered by
everyone. Whenever they went out for a walk, the prisoners used to hunt
him up and take him with them a good part of the way, passing him on
from hand to hand. They would run after him, too, in the yard, and let
him cling on to their hands and feet with his claws, delighting in the
sportive tricks of their pet.
Whenever the kitten appeared on the scene, he diverted the general
attention from Zazubrina, and the latter was by no means pleased with
this preference. Zazubrina was at heart an artist, and as an artist had
an inordinately good opinion of his own talents. When his public was
drawn away from him by the kitten, he remained alone and sat him down
in some hole or corner in the courtyard, and from thence would watch
the comrades who had forgotten him just then. And I, from my window,
would observe him, and felt everything with which his soul was full at
such moments. It appeared to me that Zazubrina must infallibly kill the
kitten at the first opportunity, and I was sorry for the merry prisoner
who was thus always longing to be the centre of general attention. Of
all the tendencies of man, this is the most injurious, for nothing
kills the soul so quickly as this longing to please people.
When you have to sit in a prison--even the life of the fungi on its
walls seems interesting. You will understand therefore the interest
with which I observed from my window the little tragedy going on
below there, this jealousy of a kitten on the part of a man--you will
understand, too, the patience with which I awaited the _dénouement._
The _dénouement_ was, indeed, approaching. It happened in this wise.
On a bright, sunny day, when the prisoners were pouring out of doors
into the courtyard, Zazubrina observed in a corner of the yard a pail
of green paint, left behind by the painters who were painting the roof
of the prison. He approached it, pondered over it, and, dipping a
finger into the paint, adorned himself with a pair of green whiskers.
These green whiskers on his red face drew forth a burst of laughter. A
certain hobbledehoy present, wishing to appropriate Zazubrina's idea,
began forthwith to paint his upper lip; but Zazubrina spoiled his fun
for him by dipping his hand in the pail and adroitly besprinkling his
whole physiognomy. The hobbledehoy spluttered and shook his head,
Zazubrina danced around him, and the public kept on laughing, and egged
on its jester with cries of encouragement.
At that very moment the red kitten suddenly appeared in the yard.
Leisurely he entered the courtyard, gracefully lifting his paws,
trotting along with tail erect, and evidently without the slightest
fear of coming to grief beneath the feet of the crowd frantically
careering round Zazubrina and the bespattered hobbledehoy, who was
violently rubbing away with the palm of his hand the mass of oil and
verdigris which covered his face.
"My brothers!" someone suddenly exclaimed, "pussy is coming."
"Pussy! Ah, the little rogue!"
"What ho, ginger! Puss, puss, puss!"
They caught up the cat and he was passed from hand to hand; everybody
caressed him.
"Look, there's no starving there! What a fat little tummy!"
"What a big cat he's growing!"
"And what claws he has got, the little devil!"
"Let him go! Let him play as he likes!"
"Well, I'll give him a back! Play away, puss!"
Zazubrina was deserted. He stood alone, wiping the green paint off
his whiskers with his fingers, and watched the kitten leaping on to
the backs and shoulders of the prisoners. Whenever he displayed a
wish to sit still on any particular shoulder or back, the men would
wriggle about and shake him off, and then he would set off leaping and
bounding again from one shoulder to the next. This diverted them all
exceedingly, and the laughter was incessant.
"Come, my friends! let us paint the cat!" resounded the voice of
Zazubrina. It sounded just as if Zazubrina, in proposing this pastime,
at the same time begged them to consent to it.
There was a commotion among the crowd of prisoners.
"But it will be the death of him," cried one.
"Paint the poor beast--what a thing to say!"
"What! paint a live animal, Zazubrina! You deserve a hiding!"
"I call it a devilish good joke," cried a little, broad-shouldered man
with a fiery-red beard, enthusiastically.
Zazubrina already held the kitten in his hands, and went with it
towards the pail of paint, and then Zazubrina began singing:
"Look, my brothers! look at that!
See me paint the ginger cat!
Paint him well, and paint him green,
And then we'll dance upon the scene."
There was a burst of laughter, and holding their sides, the prisoners
made a way in their midst, and I saw quite plainly how Zazubrina,
seizing the kitten by the tail, flung it into the pail, and then fell a
singing and dancing:
"Stop that mewing! cease to squall!
Would you your godfather maul?"
Peals of laughter!
"Oh, crooked-bellied Judas!" piped one squeaky voice.
"Alas, Batyushka!"[2] groaned another.
[2] Little father.
They were stifled, suffocated with laughter. Laughter twisted the
bodies of these people, bent them double, vibrated and gurgled in the
air--a mighty, devil-may-care laughter, growing louder continually,
and reaching the very confines of hysteria. Smiling faces, in white
kerchiefs, looked down from the windows of the women's quarters into
the yard. The Inspector, squeezing his back to the wall, poked out his
brawny body, and, holding it with both hands, discharged his thick,
bass, overpowering laugh in regular salvoes.
The joke scattered the folks in all directions around the pail.
Performing astounding antics with his legs, Zazubrina danced with all
his might, singing by way of accompaniment:
"Ah, life is a merry thing,
As the grey cat knew, I ween;
And her son, the ginger kitten,
Now lives in a world all green."
"Yes, that it will, deuce take you," cried the man with the fiery-red
beard.
But Zazubrina could not contain himself. Around him roared the
senseless laughter of all these grey people, and Zazubrina knew that
he, and he alone, was the occasion of all their laughter. In all his
gestures, in every grimace of his mobile comic face, this consciousness
manifestly proclaimed itself, and his whole body twitched with the
enjoyment of his triumph. He had already seized the kitten by the head,
and wiping from its fur the superfluous paint, with the ecstasy of the
artist conscious of his victory over the mob, never ceased dancing and
improvising:
"My dear little brothers,
In the calendar let us look,
Here's a kitten to be christened,
And no name for it in the book."
Everything laughed around the mob of prisoners, intoxicated by this
senseless mirth. The sun laughed upon the panes of glass in the
iron-grated windows. The blue sky smiled down upon the courtyard of
the prison, and even its dirty old walls seemed to be smiling with the
smile of beings who feel obliged to stifle all mirth, however it may
run riot within them. From behind the gratings of the windows of the
women's department the faces of women looked down upon the yard, they
also laughed, and their teeth glistened in the sun. Everything around
was transformed, as it were, threw off its dull, grey tone, so full of
anguish and weariness, and awoke to merriment, impregnated with that
purifying laughter which, like the sun, made the very dirt look more
decent.
Placing the green kitten on the grass, little islets of which,
springing up between the stones, variegated the prison-yard, Zazubrina,
excited, well-nigh blown, and covered with sweat, still, continued his
wild dance.
But the laughter had already died away. He was overdoing it, very
much overdoing it. The people were getting tired of him. Someone, here
and there, still shrieked hysterically; a few continued to laugh,
but already there were pauses. At last there were moments when the
silence was general, save for the singing, dancing Zazubrina, and the
kitten which mewed softly and piteously as it lay on the grass. It
was scarcely distinguishable from the grass in colour, and, no doubt,
because the paint had blinded it and hampered its movements, the poor
slippery, big-headed creature senselessly tottered on his trembling
paws, standing still as if glued to the grass, and all the while it
kept on mewing, Zazubrina commented on the movements of the kitten as
follows:
"Look ye, Christian people, look,
The green cat seeks a private nook,
The wholesome ginger-coloured puss
To find a place in vain makes fuss."
"Very clever, no doubt, you hound," said a red-haired lad.
The public regarded its artist with satiated eyes.
"How it mews!" observed the hobbledehoy prisoner, twisting his head
in the direction of the kitten, and he looked at his comrades. They
regarded the kitten in silence.
"Do you think he'll be green all his life long?" asked the lad.
"All his life long, indeed!--how long do you think he will live,
then?" began a tall, grey-bearded prisoner, squatting down beside poor
puss; "don't you see he's dying in the sun, his fur is all sticking to
him like glue; he'll turn up his toes soon...."
The kitten mewed spasmodically, producing a reaction in the sentiments
of the prisoners.
"Turn up his toes, eh?" said the hobbledehoy, "suppose we try to wash
it off him?"
Nobody answered him The little green lump writhed at the feet of the
rough fellows, a pitiable object of utter helplessness.
"Pooh! I'm all of a muck sweat!" screamed Zazubrina, flinging himself
on the ground. Nobody took the slightest notice of him.
The hobbledehoy bent over the kitten and took it up in his arms, but
immediately put it on the ground again. "It's all burning hot," he
explained.
Then he regarded his comrades, and sorrowfully said:
"Poor puss, look at him! We shall not have our puss much longer. What
was the use of killing the poor beast, eh?"
"Wait! I think it's picking up a bit," said the red-haired man.
The shapeless green creature was still writhing on the grass; twenty
pairs of eyes were following its movements, and there was not the
shadow of a smile in any of them. All were serious, all were silent,
all of them were as miserable to look upon as that kitten, just as if
it had communicated its suffering to them and they were feeling its
pangs.
"Pick up a bit, indeed!" laughed the hobbledehoy sardonically, raising
his voice, "very much so! Poor puss has had his day. We all loved him.
Why did we torture him so? Let someone put him out of his misery."
"And who was the cause of it all?" shrieked the red-haired prisoner
savagely. "Why there he is, with his devilish joke!"
"Come," said Zazubrina soothingly, "didn't the whole lot of you agree
to it?"
And he hugged himself as if he were cold.
"The whole lot of us, indeed!" sneered the hobbledehoy, "I like that.
You alone are to blame!--yes, you are!"
"Don't _you_ roar, pray, you bull-calf!" meekly suggested Zazubrina.
The grey-headed old man took up the kitten, and after carefully
examining it, pronounced his opinion:
"If we were to dip it in kerosene we might wash the paint off."
"If you'll take my advice you'll seize it by the tail and smash it
against the wall," said Zazubrina, adding, with a laugh, "that's the
simplest way out of it."
"What?" roared the red-haired man, "and if I were to treat you the same
way, how would _you_ like it?"
"The devil," screamed the hobbledehoy, and, snatching the kitten out of
the old man's hands, he set off running. The old man and a few of the
others went after him.
Then Zazubrina remained alone in the midst of a group of people, who
glowered upon him with evil and threatening eyes. They seemed to be
waiting for something from him.
"Remember, I am not alone, my friends," whined Zazubrina.
"Shut up!" shrieked the red-haired man, looking at the door; "not
alone! Who else is there, then?"
"Why the whole lot of you here," piped the jester nervously.
"You hound, you!"
The red-haired man shook his clenched fist in Zazubrina's very teeth.
The artist dodged back only to get a violent blow in the nape of the
neck.
"My friends ..." he implored piteously. But his friends had taken
note that the two warders were a good way off, and, thronging quickly
round their favourite, knocked him off his legs with a few blows. Seen
from a little distance the group might easily have been taken for a
party engaged in lively conversation. Surrounded and concealed by
them, Zazubrina lay there at their feet. Occasionally some dull thuds
were audible--they were kicking away at Zazubrina's ribs, kicking
deliberately, without the least hurry, each man waiting in turn for a
particularly favourable kicking spot to be revealed as his neighbour,
after planting his blow, wriggled his foot out of action.
Three minutes or so passed thus. Suddenly the voice of the warder
resounded in their ears:
"Now, you devils! what are you about there?"
The prisoners did not leave off the tormenting process immediately. One
by one they slowly tore themselves away from Zazubrina, and as each one
of them went away, he gave him a parting kick.
When they had all gone, he still remained lying on the ground. He
lay on his stomach, and his shoulders were all shivering--no doubt
he was weeping--and he kept on coughing and hawking. Presently, very
cautiously, as if fearing to fall to pieces, he slowly began to raise
himself from the ground, leaning heavily on his left arm, then bending
one leg beneath him, and whining like a sick dog, sat down on the
ground.
"You're pretending!" screeched the red-haired man in a threatening
voice. Then Zazubrina made an effort, and quickly stood on his feet.
Then he tottered to one of the walls of the prison. One arm was pressed
close to his breast, with the other he groped his way along. There he
now stood, holding on to the wall with his hand, his head hanging down
towards the ground. He coughed repeatedly.
I saw how dark drops were falling on to the ground; they also glistened
quite plainly on the grey ground of the prison wall.
And so as not to defile with his blood the official place of detention,
Zazubrina kept on doing his best to make it drip on the ground, so
that not a single drop should fall on the wall.
How they did laugh and jeer at him to be sure....
From henceforth the kitten vanished. And Zazubrina no longer had a
rival to divide with him the attention of the prisoners.