The _Banya_ (from “The Recollections of a Dead-House”).
“In the whole city, there were only two public baths. The first, which
was kept by a Hebrew, was numbered, with an entrance-fee of fifty
_kopeks_ for each number, and was designed for high-toned people. The
other _banya_ was pre-eminently common, old, filthy, small; and to
this _banya_ our prisoners were going. It was cold and sunny. The men
were already rejoicing because they were going to get out of prison,
and have a glimpse of the city. Jests, laughter, did not cease during
the walk. A whole squad of soldiers escorted us with loaded guns, to
the wonder of the whole city. At the _banya_ they immediately divided
us into two detachments. The second had to wait in the cold ante-room
while the first detachment soaped themselves, and this was necessary
on account of the smallness of the _banya_; but, notwithstanding this
fact, the _banya_ was so small, that it was hard to imagine how our
half could find accommodation in it. But Petrof did not leave me: he
himself, without my asking him, hurried to help me, and even offered to
wash me. Bakliushin, as well as Petrof, offered me his services. He was
a prisoner from a special cell, and was known among us as the pioneer,
and him I remembered as the gayest and liveliest of the _arestants_, as
indeed he was. We had already become somewhat well acquainted. Petrof
helped me undress myself, because, as I was not used to it, it took me
long; and the dressing-room was cold, almost as cold as the street.
By the way, it is very hard for a prisoner to undress if he has not
had some practice. In the first place, it is necessary to know how to
unfasten quickly the shin-protectors.[63] These shin-protectors are
made of leather, about seven inches long; and they are fastened to the
underclothes directly under the iron anklet which encircles the leg.
A pair of shin-protectors are worth not less than sixty kopeks; but,
nevertheless, every prisoner gets himself a pair, at his own expense of
course, because without them it is impossible to walk. The iron ring
does not encircle the leg tightly, and it is easy to thrust a finger
between the ring and the leg. Thus the iron strikes the leg, chafes it;
and a prisoner without shin-protectors would in a single day have bad
wounds. But to take off the shin-protectors is not the hardest thing of
all. It is much harder to learn to get off the clothes when one wears
the rings (_kandalui_). This is the whole trick: Suppose you are taking
off the drawers from the left leg, it is necessary first to let the
garment slip through between the leg and the ring. Afterwards you have
to put it on again the same way. The same process must be gone through
with when you put on clean clothes. For a newcomer it is even hard to
guess how it is accomplished. The first one who ever taught us how to
do it was the prisoner Kóryenef in Tobolsk, who had once been atamán
of a gang of cut-throats, and had been fastened to a chain five years.
But the prisoners get used to it, and do it without any difficulty. I
gave several kopeks to Petrof to get soap and scrubbers. To be sure,
the authorities furnished the prisoners with soap. Every one would get
a little piece about the size of a two-kopek coin, and as thick as the
slice of cheese served at evening lunch by middle-class people. Soap
was sold here in the dressing-room, together with _sbiten_ [a kind
of mead], twists, and hot water. Every prisoner would get, according
to the agreement made with the proprietor of the _banya_, a single
pail of hot water. Whoever wanted to wash himself cleaner could get
for a _grosh_, or half kopek, an extra pail, which was handed into
the _banya_ itself through a window made for that purpose from the
dressing-room. After helping me to undress, Petrof led me by the hand,
observing that it was very hard for me to walk in the rings. “Pull
them up a little higher over the calf,” he added, supporting me as
though he were my uncle (_dyadka_). “Be a little careful here, there is
a door-sill.” I even felt a little ashamed. I wanted to assure Petrof
that I could get along by myself, but he would not have believed me.
He treated me just like a young and incapable child, whom everybody
was obliged to help. Petrof was far from being a servant, by no means
was he a servant. Had I insulted him, he would have understood how to
behave to me. I did not offer him any money for his services, and he
did not ask for any. What, then, prompted him to take such care of me?
“When we opened the door of the _banya_, I thought that we were going
into Gehenna. Imagine a room about twelve feet long, and as wide,
stuffed with probably a hundred men at once, and, at the very least,
surely eighty, because the prisoners were divided into two detachments,
and the whole number of us who went to the _banya_ were two hundred
men; the steam blinding our eyes, the sweat, the filth, such a crowd
that there was no room to get a leg in. I was alarmed, and wanted
to go back, but Petrof immediately encouraged me. Somehow, with the
greatest difficulty, we squeezed ourselves through to the benches,
over the heads of those who were sitting on the floor, asking them
to bend down so that we could pass. But all the places on the benches
were occupied. Petrof told me that it was necessary to buy a place, and
immediately entered into transactions with a prisoner who had taken a
place near the window. For a kopek the prisoner surrendered his place,
immediately took the money from Petrof, who had it tight in his fist,
having foreseen that it would be necessary to bring it with him into
the _banya_. The man threw himself under the bench, directly under my
place, where it was dark, filthy, and where the slimy dampness was
almost half a finger in thickness. But the places under the benches
were also taken; even there, the crowd clustered. On the whole floor,
there was not a free place as large as the palm of the hand where the
prisoners would not be sitting doubled up, washing themselves in their
pails. Others stood upright among these, and, holding their pails in
their hands, washed themselves as best they could. The dirty water
ran down directly on the shaven heads of those who sat beneath them.
On the platform, and on all the steps leading to it, were men washing
themselves, bent down and doubled up. But precious little washing they
got. Plebeians wash themselves very little with hot water and soap:
they only steam themselves tremendously, and then pour cold water over
them, and that’s their whole bath. Fifty brooms or so on the platform
were rising and falling in concert: they all broomed themselves
into a state of intoxication. Every instant steam was let in. It
was not merely heat, it was hell let loose. It was all one uproar
and hullaballoo (_gogotalo_), with the rattling of a hundred chains
dragging over the floor.... Some, trying to pass, entangled themselves
with the chains of others, and they themselves bumped against the heads
of those sitting below, and they tumbled over, and scolded, and dragged
into the quarrel those whom they hit. The filth was streaming on every
side. All were in an excited, and as it were intoxicated, state of
mind. Shrieks and cries were heard. At the dressing-room window, where
the water was handed through, there was a tumult, a pushing, even
fighting. The hot water ordered was spilt on the heads of those sitting
on the floor, before it reached its destination. Now and then, at the
window or in the half-opened door, a soldier with mustachioed face
would show himself, with gun in hand, ready to quell any disorder. The
shaven heads and red, parboiled bodies of the prisoners seemed uglier
than ever. On their parboiled shoulders clearly appeared, oftentimes,
the welts caused by the strokes and lashes which they may have received
in days gone by; so that now all these backs seem to be freshly
wounded. Horrid welts! A chill went through my skin at seeing them.
“Give us more steam;” and the steam would spread in a thick hot cloud
over the whole _banya_. From under the cloud of steam gleamed scarred
backs, shaven heads, disfigured arms and legs. And as a fit climax Isaï
Fomitch (the Jew) would roar with all his throat, from the top of the
platform. He steams himself into insanity, but it seems as if no heat
could satisfy him. For a _kopek_ he hires a washer (_parilshchik_); but
at last it gets too warm for him, and he throws down the broom, and
runs to pour cold water on him. Isaï Fomitch does not give up hope, but
hires a second, a third: he makes up his mind, on such occasions, not
to grudge any expense, and he has as many as half a dozen washers. “You
are tough, Isaï Fomitch, you are a fine fellow,” shout the prisoners
from below. And Isaï Fomitch himself feels that at this moment he
stands above them all, and could thrust them all under his belt; he
is in a glory; and with a sharp, crazy voice he shouts out his aria
_lya-lya-lya-lya_, drowning all other voices.[64] The thought entered
my mind, that, if we were ever to be all in hell, then it would look
very much like this place. I could not refrain from imparting this
thought to Petrof: he only looked around, but said nothing.”