LIFE IN THE OSTROG
The hospital life at Omsk—Humanity of the prison doctors—Tender
treatment for victims of the lash—Sympathy shown to one another by
convicts—The prison bath—Different classes of criminals—The murderer
Petrov—Sirotkin; his history—Luka Kuzmich, the murderer of six men—The
“old believer” from Little Russia—Ali, the young Tartar—Two
brigands—The Jew, Isaiah Fomich; the prison usurer—The festival of
Christmas—Gifts of food and drink sent in from the town—Prison
theatricals—Convicts’ pets—Tanning and skin dressing carried on by the
convicts—Dostoyevski’s release.
The one bright spot in the _ostrog_ was the hospital. It was no part,
however, of the prison proper. The convicts when sick were lodged in a
couple of wards in the military hospital, which stood outside the
fortress at a distance of five or six hundred yards. It was a large
building of one story, painted yellow, spacious and well managed.
Dostoyevski bears witness to the humanity and good feeling of the prison
doctors, who made no distinction between the convicts and those who had
never come under the ban of the law. In Russia the common people alone
vie with the doctors in showing compassion for prisoners, whom they
never reproach with their misdeeds, satisfied that they are suffering
sufficiently in working out the sentences imposed upon them. The
convicts were grateful for the kindness shown them, and were in the
habit of saying that the doctors were like fathers to them and that they
could not praise them too highly. This was also the common attitude of
the peasantry toward the doctors, who in Russia generally enjoy the
affection and respect of the people, although the latter would often
prefer to take the empirical remedies of some old witch than go into a
hospital and be treated with regular medicine, being influenced by the
fantastic stories currently reported of the horrors perpetrated in
hospitals. These fears vanish when they have once made acquaintance with
the doctors and their humane and compassionate methods of practice.
Personal prejudices disappear with personal knowledge.
The prison doctors were careful and attentive to their patients,
questioning them minutely about their ailments, diagnosing anxiously and
prescribing the necessary remedies with judgment and much medical skill.
They were quick to detect imposture and malingering, but were not too
hard upon the pretended invalids, whom they could forgive for seeking
the ease and comfort of the hospital with its warm lodging, its bed with
a mattress and the more palatable food. They had a scientific name for
feigned disease, which they styled _febris catharalis_, a formula quite
understood, and an imaginary malady required a week’s treatment. But
they drew the line at last, and refused to be further imposed upon. If
any one seemed disposed to linger on in hospital, the doctor would say
plainly, “Come, come, you have had your rest, you must go out now and
take no more liberties.”
One case of persistent malingering must be quoted. It was of a class not
unknown in western prisons. A convict long suffered from a seemingly
incurable disease of the eyes for which no treatment availed, although
plasters, blisters, and leeches were tried. This particular prisoner was
under sentence to receive a thousand lashes, and he was eager to
postpone the punishment as long as possible. The most desperate devices
have been tried for this purpose, sometimes even a murderous attack upon
an officer or comrade, which would entail a fresh trial and an
additional penalty, but which would also delay the flogging. The man
with the sore eyes had some secret method of aggravating the disease
which was never discovered, but its use was eventually checked by
another operation applied to the back of the patient’s neck. The skin
was taken up into the form of a blister, into which a double incision
was made, one on each side and a thick thread of cotton was passed
through the wound. Every day at a certain hour the thread was pulled
backward and forward so that the wound would suppurate and never heal.
The torture of this was intolerable, and to escape the continual
suffering the convict volunteered to leave the hospital. Almost
immediately after he went out, his eyes became well and as soon as the
neck was healed he underwent his corporal punishment.
It was a painful moment for the hospital when the victim of a severe
flogging was brought in fresh from the lash. He was received with grave
composure and a respect proportioned to the enormity of his offence and
the amount of punishment it had entailed. Those who had suffered most
cruelly were thought more of than the mere deserter guilty of a minor
military crime. If the patient were too much injured to attend to
himself, he received even more sympathy. The surgeons knew they were
leaving him in kindly and experienced hands. The treatment of the poor
back, all scored and mangled, was extremely simple: the constant
application of a piece of linen steeped in cold water. A very delicate
operation inflicting acute torture was the picking out from the
lacerated wounds the scraps and fragments of the twigs when the flogging
had been performed by rods. Yet the sufferers usually exhibited
extraordinary stoicism. Dostoyevski says: “I have seen many convicts who
had been whipped cruelly. I do not remember one who uttered a groan.
Only after such an experience the countenance becomes pale and
discomposed, the eyes glitter, the look wanders and the lips tremble so
that the patient sometimes bites them till they bleed.”
Quoting further and speaking of one man just flogged, the same writer
says: “He was only twenty years old. He had been a soldier and was
rather a fine man, tall and well-made, with a bronzed skin. His back,
uncovered down to the waist, had been seriously beaten and his body
trembled with fever beneath the damp sheet applied to his bleeding
sores. For the first half hour he walked up and down the room in agony.
I looked in his face; he seemed to be thinking of nothing, his eyes had
a strange expression at once wild and timid; they fixed themselves with
difficulty upon surrounding objects. He stared at the hot tea I had
before me steaming in its cup. I offered it to the poor creature who
stood there shivering, with chattering teeth, and he drank it down at
one gulp, without looking at me or making a sign, then put the cup down
silently and resumed his walk. His pain was too intense for words or
thanks. No one questioned him or spoke; the other prisoners attended to
the changing of the cold compresses, thinking rightly that he would
prefer that to outspoken compassion, and the sufferer seemed satisfied
and grateful to be left severely alone.”
That the convicts, even the most criminal and degraded, were not quite
heartless or insensible to the finer feelings, was to be seen in their
demeanour when a sick comrade died in hospital. The passing away of one
poor victim of consumption is told with infinite pathos and much painful
realism. Toward the end he became almost unconscious, his sight was
confused, he recognised no one and was evidently suffering acutely. His
respiration was painful, deep and irregular; his breast rose and fell
convulsively as he struggled for breath, and he cast off his bedding as
an intolerable burden. When exposed, it was terrible to see his
immensely long body—with fleshless arms and legs, and ribs as clearly
marked as a skeleton’s—which was absolutely naked but for the cross
pendent from his neck and his leg irons. As his last moment approached,
a death-like stillness prevailed, no one spoke or only in whispers. The
convicts stepped on tiptoe across the floor, gazing furtively at the
dying man, who caught with trembling hand at the cross, which seemed to
be suffocating him, and tried to tear it off; the rattling in his throat
grew more and more pronounced, and at last he died.
The spectators behaved with impressive reverence. One convict closed the
dead man’s eyes, crossing himself, and the rest imitated the action. The
corporal on duty came in, removed his helmet and also crossed himself,
as he looked intently at the naked, shrivelled corpse still loaded with
irons, which fell to the ground with a sharp sound and rattled along it
as the body was lifted from the bed and carried out. The spell was
broken; every one spoke as usual, and the voice of the corporal was
heard calling for the blacksmith to remove chains no longer needed as a
restraint. The spirit had taken flight; no physical precaution could
serve to prevent its escape.
It is hardly necessary to dilate upon the cruel and indefensible
practice, still observed by some so-called civilised countries, of
imposing fetters upon those whom the law has condemned to the loss of
personal liberty. The poor excuse of their need for safe custody is
always pleaded, and the best answer is that of the old English judge who
suggested that gaolers build their prison walls higher when he forbade
the use of irons. No such argument can be used with the Russian
authorities, who would still maintain the necessity of irons as a means
of preventing escape, although they have never availed, entirely, and
they would urge as a secondary reason that their use implies a moral
degradation no less than a physical burden. It is a well known fact that
the determined convict can and does constantly rid himself of his chains
in Russian prisons, by hammering out the rivets with a stone, or
elongating the basils sufficiently to allow the ankles to be drawn
through. But the retention of irons upon convicts when sick and
suffering cannot be justified, viewed from any standpoint. When men are
really ill and must still carry their chains unvaryingly in bed and in
hospital, the cruelty is manifest. In health it is found that the limbs
shrivel and waste away, but for those in the fangs of disease, such as
scurvy, phthisis or fever, it is an added intolerable torment,
altogether prejudicial, postponing or often preventing recovery. Yet the
doctors themselves, kindly men, convinced of their evil effects,
hesitate to recommend the removal of irons from their patients in the
very worst stages of illness and, as we have just seen, death itself is
the only relief that can come.
The horrible inconvenience caused by those inseparable companions is
well illustrated by the difficulty in putting on or taking off clothing,
a rare business, no doubt, for the convicts made few changes and slept
fully clothed, but it must be done at the periodical visit to the public
bath. The chains were fastened to a leather waistbelt by two straps, one
for each leg, and they must be held up in this way, or walking would be
impossible. Each end of the chain was attached to a ring loosely fitting
the leg so that a finger must be inserted between the iron and the
flesh; the straps were necessary to keep the ring in its place, or the
skin would be chafed and broken the very first day. To remove the
trousers or the shirt is quite an art and only slowly acquired.
We get a graphic description of the prison bath as taken in collective
fashion by a hundred convicts at one time, all of them crowded into one
small apartment some twelve feet square. Not a single scrap of space was
unoccupied, they were huddled together on benches tier above tier, so
that the feet of those above trampled on those below and the leg chains
became inextricably entangled and numbers were trampled on or dragged
about the floor. The bath itself was like a drunken orgy; a dense volume
of steam filled the room and deluges of dirty hot water were dashed to
and fro from the pailful carried by every bather. Everyone was naked
save for the rattling chains to which the convicts howled a mad
accompaniment. They were maddened by the excitement, the tropical heat,
the smart of the blows self-administered or struck by the hired rubbers,
for convicts were always to be found who for a kopeck or two were
willing to lay strokes on the heated flesh of the employers with birch
rods of twisted twigs. It must have been a hideous scene, a great mass
of commingled humanity in a state of half intoxication, shouting and
shrieking at the top of their voices. The steam grew thicker and thicker
until all were soaked and saturated with it, and their bodies became
scarlet in the intolerably burning and overheated atmosphere.
The _ostrog_ at Omsk contained a number of widely differing types,
embracing many classes of crime, the most heinous as well as venial
offences. All classes and many nationalities of the widespread Russian
Empire were represented; well-bred nobles, degraded from their rank and
sent to herd with serfs and peasants, and “old believers” from little
Russia, insurgent Poles, mutinous soldiers sentenced by court-martial
for desertion and grave acts of insubordination, mountaineers from the
Caucasus exiled for brigandage, and Mahometans from Daghestan who lay in
wait for passing caravans and pillaged them and assassinated the
merchant travellers. There were murderers in many varieties; Cain who
killed slowly and deliberately with deep malice and forethought, and the
slayer moved to murder by swiftly risen, passionate impulse in a sudden
irresistible access of fury. Thieves of all sorts abounded; petty
pilferers and robbers on a grand scale; the wandering tramps or
_brodyagi_ who had escaped from durance to range the woods and steal
from all they met. There were also many smugglers, long trained and
practised in the traffic, who clung with great attachment to the
business and who were constantly engaged in the clandestine introduction
of spirits into the prison.
The story of one murderer, Petrov, exhibits a curious and somewhat
uncommon character. He had been a soldier and had suddenly revolted at
the ill-usage of his colonel who struck him one day on parade. It was
not the first time he had been beaten, for the personal chastisement of
their men was by no means uncommon with Russian officers, but on this
occasion Petrov would not tamely submit, and retaliated by stabbing the
colonel to the heart. It was said of him in prison that when the spirit
moved him, nothing would stop him; he was capable of anything, and he
would kill a man without the smallest hesitation or without showing the
slightest remorse. The evil temper in him was easily aroused and was
then ungovernable. Once he was sentenced to be whipped for some minor
offence, no small punishment certainly, and he resolved not to submit to
it. He had been previously flogged more than once and had borne his
punishment calmly and philosophically. But this time he considered that
he was innocent and wrongfully sentenced. He meant to resist, even to go
so far as to kill the governor, if necessary, sooner than yield. This
major-governor was a much dreaded being, a tyrannical disciplinarian,
with lynx-like eyes for the detection of any irregularity; he was
commonly called by the convicts “the man with eight eyes.” His severe
method had generally the effect of irritating his charges, naturally
ill-tempered and irascible men.
Petrov made no secret of his fell purpose, and it was known throughout
the prison that when called up for punishment he would make an end of
the major. He had successfully concealed a sharp-pointed shoemaker’s
awl, which he held ready in his hand as he was marched under escort to
the place of execution. The prisoners, in breathless anticipation of
what they might see, clung close to the stockade, peering through the
interstices, for they believed the major’s last hour had come. But the
major, quite ignorant of his impending doom, had suddenly decided not to
witness the flogging, and drove home in his carriage leaving his
lieutenant to superintend the punishment parade. “God has saved him,”
ejaculated the convicts piously, and Petrov submitted to his ordeal
without a murmur. His anger was against the major and it had disappeared
when the object was removed.
On another occasion, he had quarrelled with a comrade over the
possession of a worthless piece of rag. They disputed with great
violence and a collision seemed inevitable. Suddenly Petrov turned pale,
his lips trembled, growing blue and bloodless, his respiration became
difficult, and slowly he approached his antagonist step by step—he
always walked with naked feet—while a deathlike stillness around
succeeded the noisy chatter of the other convicts in the yard. The man
he threatened awaited him tremblingly and suddenly blanched and gave in
by throwing the cloth of contention at his adversary, using the most
horrible and insulting language toward him.
This Petrov was a man of contradictory traits. In person he was of short
stature, agile and strongly built, with a pleasant face, a bold
expression, white regular teeth and an agreeable voice. He seemed quite
young, no more than thirty, although he was fully forty years of age. He
always appeared absent-minded and had a habit of looking into the
distance over and beyond near objects. An attentive listener, joining
with animation in the talk, he would suddenly become silent, oppressed,
as it were, with disturbing thoughts. He was deemed a most resolute
character and inspired the utmost awe in every one, as capable of
anything if the caprice seized him; ready to murder any one out of hand
without hesitation, and never deterred by the dread of subsequent
remorse. He generally showed tact and forbearance in his relations with
others, spoke to them civilly and was not easily roused or annoyed.
Sirotkin was another type of ex-soldier who had found military
discipline insufferable and was resolved to escape from it at any cost.
All went wrong with him; every one was harsh and cruel and he was
forever being punished, and sobbing as if broken-hearted in some remote
corner. One dark night when on sentry duty he was so unutterably sad
that he placed the muzzle of his piece to his breast and pressed the
trigger with his big toe. The gun missed fire twice; then he paced his
beat carrying his musket reversed. He was checked for this by the
captain of the guard, whereupon he bayonetted his officer then and
there. He received a long sentence and could never realise that he
richly deserved it. He was an enigma to all; mild-mannered, with
tranquil blue eyes, a clear complexion and a soft air, and seemingly
quite incapable of a murderous crime. When addressed, he answered
quickly and with deference, but otherwise spoke little and rarely
laughed. There was an expression in his eyes as of a child of ten; he
cared for nothing but ginger-bread cakes, on which he lavished the small
sums he sometimes earned, although he was lazy and apathetic and had no
trade.
Luka Kuzmich was a convict who had killed as many as six men in cold
blood and was much given to glory in his misdeeds. Yet for all his
bragging words he was despised by his comrades, who summed him up as a
conceited swaggerer inspiring no real fear. He often told the story of a
crime of which he was especially proud, the murder of a major in another
prison, but it made no impression because of his vanity and
self-sufficiency. The major was a bully, one of those who used the
blasphemous formula, customary at times with common men promoted
undeservedly to high office, and who cried to his charges, “I will teach
you to behave yourselves—I am your Czar, your God!” Luka, after
upbraiding his comrades for not resenting these pretensions, borrowed
the “rascal,” the one sharp knife permitted to be kept in the kitchen,
went up to the major, and stabbed him in the intestines. He gained great
notoriety for this horrible deed, and a crowd assembled to witness the
infliction of the five hundred lashes given him for the crime, but no
one in the prison thought the more of him when he told the story, or
believed him when he posed as a very terrible person.
In sharp but pleasing contrast to these miscreants were convicts who had
undoubtedly broken the law, but from mistaken motives,—under pressure of
religious dissent, or in obedience to and by the example of elders. One
man belonged to the sect of “old believers,” dissenters in Little Russia
from the orthodox state religion, and when a number of them had been
converted at Starodub, this old man, Notey, bitterly resented the
building of a new Greek church and joined with others to burn it down.
This act of incendiarism was visited with a sentence of imprisonment
which this well-to-do shopkeeper accepted courageously, convinced that
he was “a sufferer for the true faith.” He bore his penalty as a
martyrdom and was proud of it, firmly believing he had done well in
destroying an opposition church. A peaceable, kindly old man of sixty
years, he had a mild, good-natured face and clear limpid eyes which were
surrounded with many little wrinkles. He was of a gay, light-hearted
temperament, ready to crack jokes with his fellows, not with the coarse
cynical laughter of other convicts, but with something of simple
childish glee. He had quickly acquired the respect and good will of all
the prisoners, who had such implicit confidence in him that he was the
universal banker trusted to hold and conceal their little hoards of cash
and to honestly account for all moneys deposited with him.
In spite of the firmness with which he endured his hard fate, he was
tormented by profound and incurable grief. At night, or in the small
hours, he was in the habit of leaving his bed and climbing up to the top
of the great porcelain stove where he regularly performed his devotions,
praying aloud with broken, agonised sobs. He might be heard repeating as
he wept, “Lord, do not forsake me. Master, strengthen me! My poor little
children, my dear little children, we shall never see each other again.”
He would remain there in earnest supplication until dawn came and the
prison was opened.
Another estimable creature was a young Tartar, Ali by name, one of a
band of brigands from Daghestan. He had been drawn into evil practices
by his elder brothers and sentenced for what was really their crime, but
“extenuating circumstances” were admitted, and he received the minimum
punishment. One day he had been ordered to take his yataghan, mount his
horse and ride abroad with his brothers as they were bent upon
plundering the caravan of a rich Armenian merchant, whom they slew,
taking possession of his goods. They were captured, tried, flogged and
sent to Siberia. Every one liked this lad—he was only twenty-two years
old—on account of his gaiety and good temper. His frank, intelligent
face was always calm and placid; there was a childish simplicity in his
confident smile; his large and expressive black eyes were so full of
friendliness and tender sympathy that it was a relief to look at him.
His three brothers, the real cause of his misfortune, loved him with
paternal affection. He was their chief consolation. Dull and sad as a
rule, they always smiled when they spoke to him, as to a child, and
their forbidding countenances lighted up. He did not dare address them
first; he recognised their superiority as elders and treated them with
great deference and respect. It was a strange fact that he could
preserve his native honesty and remain firm and uncorrupted among such
surroundings. Chaste as a young girl, everything that was foul, shameful
or unjust filled him with indignation. He carefully avoided quarrels and
yet he was no coward and could not be insulted with impunity.
At this time there were two Lesghians from the Caucasus, mountain
brigands, one of whom was tall and thin, with a bad face. The other, by
name Nourra, was universally popular. Of middle height and built like a
Hercules, with fair hair, and violet eyes, he had exceedingly mild
manners, although he had been constantly engaged as a rebel and his body
bore many scars from old bayonet wounds. His conduct in prison was
exemplary, and he punctiliously observed the rules. Thieving, cheating
and drunkenness filled him with disgust; he evinced his indignation and
turned away, but without quarrelling. Fervently pious, he said his
prayers religiously and strictly observed all Mahometan fasts. He clung
firmly to the hope that when his sentence ended he would be sent back to
the Caucasus. Indeed, without this consolation he would certainly have
died in prison.
There is a humourous side to every situation, and the dark, gloomy life
in the _ostrog_ was brightened at times by the comicalities of one
prisoner, a Jew, Isaiah Fomich by name, who was a butt and
laughing-stock for all. He was a murderer who had been publicly whipped,
exposed on the pillory and branded for a crime of greed. The branding
had left frightful scars, to remove which he had received a famous
specific, but he was waiting until his release to use it, years ahead.
“Otherwise, I shall not be able to marry,” he would say, “and I must
absolutely get married.” His first appearance in the prison evoked
general laughter. He looked like a poor, plucked fowl, gaunt and thin
and with hardly an ounce of flesh on his bones. Already of uncertain
age, small, feeble, cunning and at the same time stupid, but boastful,
and a horrible coward, it was difficult to believe he could have borne a
flogging. The life of the prison seemed to agree with him and it was
believed he was quite pleased to be condemned, as it gave him a chance
of making a good deal of money. He was a jeweller by trade and a good
workman. There was no “free” jeweller in the town of Omsk, and he
secured more orders than he could execute, for which he was always well
paid. Being rich, he soon was able to purchase all he wanted. He fared
sumptuously; he bought a samovar, a tea cup, and a mattress. With his
spare cash he also soon became the prison usurer, and almost every
convict in the prison was in his debt and paid him heavy interest on
small loans.
His arrival was greeted with great interest. He was the only Jew in the
prison, and everyone crowded round to stare at him when he was first
brought in with his hair shaved on the right side of his head. He sat on
his plank bed, clinging to his bag, not daring to raise his eyes or
resent the ridicule heaped upon him. A young convict came up to him,
bringing a ragged pair of old linen trousers, and asked what Fomich
would advance on them. “A silver ruble? No, only seven kopecks (seven
farthings),” said the Jew, “and three kopecks interest.” “By the year?”
he was asked. “No, by the month,” he replied. And the bargain was struck
after much contemptuous laughter, whereupon Fomich put the pledged rags
carefully away in his bag.
They all laughed at him, but no one insulted him, and he was rather
proud of being noticed, as he thought it added to his importance. He
gave himself great airs; he would sing in a squeaking, falsetto voice
some idiotic refrain to a ridiculous tune, and perform the most comical
antics. On Saturday evening, the convicts would collect to see him
celebrate his Sabbath and he was greatly flattered by the curiosity
displayed. He prepared his table in one corner with a very dignified
air, lighted two candles, clothed himself in his robes, put on the
phylacteries and tied a little box on his forehead where it protruded
like a horn. Then he read aloud, wept and tore his hair, and suddenly
changed into a hymn of triumph delivered with a nasal tone. All this, as
he readily explained, was to typify the lamentations at the loss of
Jerusalem, changing into rejoicing at the return.
One day, when at his worship, the major came in and stood behind the Jew
while he was wildly gesticulating without noticing the governor, who,
after watching him for some time, burst out laughing and went off with
the one exclamation, “idiot.” Afterward Fomich declared that he had not
seen the major; that he was always in a state of ecstatic abstraction
when saying his prayers. He was, or pretended to be, a very strict Jew,
and liked people to admire his punctilious observance of the rule of
idleness on his Saturday Sabbath; and was very proud of his visit to the
synagogue under escort as a single worshipper, a privilege to which he
was entitled by law. Fomich was at the height of his glory in the bath,
where he treated himself to the services of several rubbers and sang
loudly when the hubbub was highest and the steam most plentiful.
The festival of Christmas, so highly esteemed throughout Russia, was
strictly observed also in the prison. The convicts were eager to show
that they were doing the same as the rest of the world outside, and to
feel that they were not altogether reprobates cast out by society. It
was essentially a high day and holiday, when no work was enforced or
undertaken, and when rejoicing, enjoyment and sensual gratification
became, with permission, the order of the day. A complete change came
over the prison on the eve of the great day. Almost all were busy
preparing to keep Christmas in suitable fashion according to their own
ideas. The chief of these was to revel in unaccustomed good living. The
old soldiers, the guards who might come and go, brought in openly the
supplies ordered from the town, suckling pigs, poultry and joints of
meat; and the drink sellers, no less active, smuggled in their vodka
secretly.
Every one was moving early, the drum beat was heard long before dawn and
the convicts were well up and dressed when the officer of the day came
in to muster the men and wish them a happy Christmas. This interchange
of compliments was general even between convicts who had not spoken to
each other before; those who had once quarrelled forgot their enmity in
the desire for peace and good-will. A sort of universal friendship
prevailed in harmony with the sentiment of the day. It was encouraged by
the good feeling expressed from outside, for relays of gifts of food,
great and small, began to arrive from the town to be distributed among
the prisoners.
The kitchens were the chief centre of interest. Great fires were
blazing, and the cooks were preparing the festive entertainment, under
the eyes, or with the assistance of the convicts themselves. Every one
supplemented the daily ration with choice morsels privately purchased
out of hard-earned savings. But no one tasted food until the priest
arrived with cross and holy water; a small table had been prepared for
him with a holy image on it, and before it a lamp was burning. After he
had conducted the service, the pre-Christmas fast ended, and the feast
began by the permission of the commandant, who had visited the barrack
formally and tasted the cabbage soup, but had made no remark about the
additional delicacies provided and which were now brought in to be
greedily devoured.
The scene presently degenerated into an orgy. Faces became flushed with
drink and good cheer; the _balalaiki_, or banjos, were produced; the
fiddler, paid by a convivial convict, played lively dance music. The
conversation became more and more animated and more and more noisy, but
the dinner ended without great disorder. Later, drunkenness was general;
it was no offence that day, and even the officers, who made the
regulation visits, paid no attention. The antics of the intoxicated were
an amusing spectacle to most. But a few of the more orderly and
right-thinking showed their disapproval. The “old believer” from
Starodub climbed up to his favourite perch on top of the stove and
fervently prayed for the rest of the day. The sight of these excesses
was exceedingly painful to him. The Mahometan prisoners took no part in
the revels; they looked on with much curiosity and manifest disgust. The
youth Nourra, already mentioned, shook his head crying, “Aman, Aman.
Alas! Alas! It is an offence to Allah!” The Jew, Isaiah Fomich, declined
to join in a celebration commemorating an offence committed by his
co-religionists, and to show his contempt for Christ, lighted a candle
and went to work in a favourite corner.
As the day passed, reckless self-indulgence gradually increased, but the
general drunkenness and debauchery began to lapse into wearisome
depression. Men who had been convulsed with uproarious laughter became
maudlin and dropped into some out of the way spot, weeping bitter tears;
others, pale and sickly, tottered about, seeking quarrels with all whom
they met. Old differences were revived; disputes soon developed into
personal conflicts; frequently two of the men would come to blows as to
which should stand treat to the other. The whole spectacle was
insupportable, nauseating and repulsive. The great festival, which
should have passed with so much delight, ended in dejection and
disappointment. The convicts, drunken or sober, alike dropped down on
their camp beds and slept heavily.
In some countries prisoners have been permitted to find relief in
theatrical performances. It was so in the Spanish presidios, and here in
the old Russian _ostrog_ a dramatic entertainment, on a most ambitious
scale, was a feature of the Christmas holidays. A convict company was
organised very secretly; it was always uncertain whether the major would
consent, and all was kept from his knowledge until the last moment. The
rehearsals were quite private; the names of the plays were unknown, or
how the costumes and scenery were to be obtained. The stage was created
in a space cleared in the centre of the barrack, and could be put up and
taken down in a quarter of an hour. The moving spirit was one Bakluchin,
who had been a soldier in Riga, and had murdered his rival, a German,
whom he had caught paying addresses to his fiancée and who was preferred
by her. This Bakluchin, who was thirty years old, was of lofty stature,
with a frank, determined countenance, but good-natured and generally
popular. He had the comedian’s knack of changing his face in comic
imitation of any passer-by, and convulsed all who saw him. As the
projected performance took place, Bakluchin swelled with ill-concealed
importance and boasted of the success he would achieve. He went about
declaiming portions of his part and amusing everybody by anticipation.
Two popular pieces were chosen for performance, plays from an old book,
preserved by memory in the traditions of the prison. Many of the
“properties,” too, had been handed down, carefully concealed in secret
places for years. One of them, the curtain, which was a work of art, was
composed of numerous scraps of cloth sewed together, such as the linen
of old shirts, bandages, and underwear; even pieces of strong paper were
added to fill in empty spaces; and on the surface was painted in oil a
landscape with trees and ponds of flowers. This curtain delighted the
convicts and shared the first applause with the orchestra of eight
instruments,—two violins, three banjos, two guitars and a tambourine.
The musicians played well, and the tunes were all original and
distinctive.
The audience, before the curtain rose, crowded and crushed into the
narrow theatre, wild with suppressed excitement. Two benches were placed
immediately in front of the stage, which was lighted with candle ends.
These seats, with one or two chairs, were for the officers who might
deign to be present,—the overseers, clerks, directors of works and
engineers. Behind stood the convicts respectfully, row after row. Some
were posted on the camp beds or had climbed up on the porcelain stove,
and every face glowed with delight, a strange look of infinite
contentment and unmixed pleasure shining on these scarred and branded
countenances so generally dark and forbidding. Everyone was dressed in
his best, his short sheepskin pelisse, in spite of the suffocating heat,
and each face was damp with perspiration. Everyone was there: The
Tartars and Circassians, who showed a passionate delight for the
theatre; Young Ali, whose childish face beamed and whose laughter was
contagious; the Jew, Isaiah Fomich, who was in an ecstasy from the
rising of the curtain to its fall, and rejoiced at the chance of showing
off, for when the plate was passed he ostentatiously contributed the
imposing sum of ten kopecks, or twopence, halfpenny.
As the play proceeded, it was received with warm applause. Cries of
approbation were heard in all parts of the house. The convicts nudged
each other with loud whispers, calling attention to the jokes, laughing
uproariously, smacking their lips and clacking their tongues, and toward
the end the gaiety reached its climax. “Imagine the convict prison,”
says Dostoyevski, “the chains of long years of captivity in close
confinement, the bodily toil monotonous and unending, the accumulated,
long protracted misery and despair, and the grim place of durance
transformed on this occasion into one of light-hearted amusement where
prisoners might forget their condition, dismiss the nightmare of crime
and breathe freely and laugh aloud.”
A comedy in prison! The convicts were in costumes altogether different
from the daily garb of shame, but with the inseparable chains always
obstructing. One was in female attire, wearing an old worn-out muslin
dress, with neck and arms bare and a pert calico cap on his half shaven
head. Another represented a gentleman of fashion in a frock coat, round
hat and cloak, but his chains rattled as he strutted across the stage;
one was in the full-dress but faded uniform of an aide-de-camp. There
were convicts in many characters, strange and varied: a nobleman, an
innkeeper, demons, a Brahmin in flowing robes. Every one was delighted
when the performance ended, and the convicts separated, quite pleased to
have been taken away from themselves for a brief space, full of praise
for the actors and of gratitude to their superiors, who had permitted
the play to be given. It was a wise concession, for the convicts made a
point of conducting themselves in the most exemplary fashion.
The prisoners in the _ostrog_ were fond of live animals, and if
permitted, would have filled the prison with domesticated pets. They had
dogs, geese, a horse and even an eagle whom they vainly sought to tame.
“Bull” was a good-sized black dog with white spots, intelligent eyes and
a bushy tail. He lived in the prison enclosure, slept in the courtyard,
ate the waste scraps from the kitchen and had little hold on the
sympathy of the men, all of whom he regarded as masters and owners. He
came to greet the working parties on their return from labour, wagging
his tail and looking for the caresses which he seldom got. Dostoyevski,
as he tells us, was one of the first to make friends with Bull by giving
him a piece of bread and patting him on the back, which pleased him
greatly. “That evening, not having seen me for the whole day,” says the
author, “he ran up to me leaping and barking. Then he put his paws on my
shoulders and looked me in the face. ‘Here is a friend sent to me by
destiny,’ I said to myself, and during the first weeks, so full of pain,
every time I returned to the barrack I hastened to fondle and make much
of Bull.”
Another dog was called Snow. He was a luckless creature who had been
driven over and injured in the spine by the wheels of a _telyega_,
“country cart.” He looked like two dogs because of the curvature of his
spine, and he was mangy, with bleared eyes and a hairless tail always
drooping between his hind legs. Snow was abjectly submissive to all,
both men and fellow-dogs. He never barked nor made overtures, but
continually turned on his back to curry favour, and received the kick of
every passer without a sign of resentment, except that if hurt he would
often utter one low deprecatory yelp. When surprised with a caress
wholly unexpected and unusual, he quivered and whined plaintively with
delight. His fate was sad and brutal; he was torn to pieces by other
dogs in the ditch of the fortress.
A third dog was Kultiapka, brought in as a puppy soon after he had been
born in one of the prison workshops. Bull took him under his especial
protection and “fathered” and played with him. He was always of
abbreviated height but grew steadily in length and breadth, and was
quaint in appearance. One ear hung constantly down while the other was
always cocked up. He had a fine, fluffy, mouse-coloured coat which cost
him his life. One of the convicts who made ladies’ shoes cast greedy
eyes upon Kultiapka, and having felt his skin lured him into a corner,
killed and flayed him. A little later the young wife of one of the
officers appeared in a smart pair of velvet boots trimmed with mouse
coloured fur.
Tanning and skin dressing was a trade much followed in the prison. Dogs
which had been stolen by servants were brought in and sold. On one
occasion a fine black dog of good breed was disposed of by a scamp of a
footman for thirty kopecks. The poor beast must have anticipated what
was in store for him, for he looked up at the convicts in a distressed,
beseeching way, but could find no pity, and he was speedily hanged. The
same fate overtook the prison goat, a beautiful white kid of whom every
one was fond. The pretty creature was full of grace and was very
playful, jumping on and off the kitchen table, wrestling with the
convicts and always full of fun and spirits. He grew up into a fine, fat
beast with magnificent horns, which it was proposed to gild and which
were often decorated with flowers. It was the custom for the goat to
march at the head of the convicts when returning from labour, and when
the eyes of the choleric major fell upon it in the procession, he
forthwith ordered it to be executed. The goat was killed and flayed;
both carcass and skin were sold in the prison; the latter went to the
leather dresser, the former, which fetched a ruble and fifty kopecks,
was roasted and the flesh retailed among the convicts.
Other strange pets were a flock of geese, which somehow had been hatched
within the enclosure, and as they grew up they attached themselves to
the prisoners and would march out with them regularly to labour. When
the drum beat and the parties assembled at the great gate, the geese
came cackling, flapping their wings and hopping along. While the
convicts worked, the geese pecked about close at hand until the time
came for return, when they again joined the procession and marched with
their friends solemnly back to the barracks, to the great amusement of
the bystanders. The close attachment between the birds and their friends
did not save the geese from having their necks twisted and being added
to the dinner on a feast day.
The captive eagle did not take kindly to detention. It had been brought
in wounded, with a broken wing and half dead. Nothing could domesticate
or tame it. It gazed fiercely and fearlessly on the curious crowd and
opened its beak as if determined to sell its life dearly. As soon as a
chance came it hopped away on one leg, flapping its one uninjured wing,
and hid in a far-off, inaccessible corner, from which it never emerged.
The convicts often gathered to stare at it and would bait it with the
dog Bull, who hesitated, in wholesome dread of the savage bird’s beak
and claws. The eagle long refused food, and although he finally took
meat and drank water left with him, he would consume nothing that was
given him by hand or when any one’s eye was upon him. When no one was
near, he would creep out of his corner and take a walk of a dozen steps,
hopping and limping backward and forward with great regularity under the
lee of the stockade. He resisted pugnaciously all overtures to
friendship, and would suffer no one to pet him or pat him but pined
away, lonely and irreconcilable, waiting only for death.
At last the convicts were moved to compassion for the caged bird,
deprived of liberty like themselves. It was seriously discussed whether
he ought not to be set free. So he was securely tied, taken out to the
ramparts when the parties went to labour, and thrown out on the bare,
barren steppe. The bird immediately hurried away, flapping his wounded
wing and striving desperately to get out of sight of his captors. They
looked after him enviously; they had given him the freedom they did not
possess, a boon they hungered for unceasingly night and day, winter and
summer, but especially when the sun shone bright and they could see the
boundless plain stretching away in the blue distance beyond the river
Irtysh and across the free Kirghiz Steppe.
Dostoyevski feelingly records his sensations when the day for his
release at length arrived. The night before, as darkness fell, he went
round the enclosure for the last time, revisiting every spot where he
had suffered the bitter pangs of imprisonment, solitary and
despairing,—the place where he had counted over and over again the
thousands and thousands of days he had still to remain inside. The next
morning, before the exodus for labour, he made the rounds to bid his
comrades farewell; and many a coarse, horny hand was held out to him
with hearty good-will. The generous souls gave him Godspeed, but others
who were more envious turned their backs on him and would not reply to
his kindly greetings. His last visit was to the blacksmith’s shop. He
went without escort, and placed his feet on the anvil, each in turn; the
rivets were struck out of the basils and he was freed from his chains.
“Liberty! New life, resurrection from the dead! Unspeakable moment!”