“In the first chapter of the ‘Recollections of the House of the Dead,’

something was said about a parricide, of noble birth, who was put

forward as an instance of the insensibility with which the convicts

speak of the crimes they have committed. It was also stated that he

refused altogether to confess to the authorities and the court; but

that, thanks to the statements of persons who knew all the details of

his case and history, his guilt was put beyond all doubt. These persons

had informed the author of the ‘Recollections,’ that the criminal had

been of dissolute life and overwhelmed with debts, and that he had

murdered his father to come into the property. Besides, the whole town

where this parricide was imprisoned told his story in precisely the same

way, a fact of which the editor of these ‘Recollections’ has fully

satisfied himself. It was further stated that this murderer, even when

in the jail, was of quite a joyous and cheerful frame of mind, a sort of

inconsiderate giddy-pated person, although intelligent, and that the

author of the ‘Recollections’ had never observed any particular signs of

cruelty about him, to which he added, ‘So I, for my part, never could

bring myself to believe him guilty.’

“Some time ago the editor of the ‘Recollections of the House of the

Dead,’ had intelligence from Siberia of the discovery of the innocence

of this ‘parricide,’ and that he had undergone ten years of the

imprisonment with hard labour for nothing; this was recognised and

avowed by the authorities. The real criminals had been discovered and

had confessed, and the unfortunate man in question set at liberty. All

this stands upon unimpeachable and authoritative grounds.”

To say more would be useless. The tragical facts speak too clearly for

themselves. All words are weak in such a case, where a life has been

ruined by such an accusation. Such mistakes as these are among the

dreadful possibilities of life, and such possibilities impart a keener

and more vivid interest to the “Recollections of the House of the Dead,”

which dreadful place we see may contain innocent as well as guilty men.

To continue. I have said that I became at last, in some sense,

accustomed, if not reconciled, to the conditions of convict life; but it

was a long and dreadful time before I was. It took me nearly a year to

get used to the prison, and I shall always regard this year as the most

dreadful of my life, it is graven deep in my memory, down to the very

least details. I think that I could minutely recall the events and

feelings of each successive hour in it.

I have said that the other prisoners, too, found it as difficult as I

did to get used to the life they had to lead. During the whole of this

first year, I used to ask myself whether they were really as calm as

they seemed to be. Questions of this kind pressed themselves upon me. As

I have mentioned before, all the convicts felt themselves in an alien

element to which they could not reconcile themselves. The sense of home

was an impossibility; they felt as if they were staying, as a stage

upon a journey, in an evil sort of inn. These men, exiles for and from

life, seemed either in a perpetual smouldering agitation, or else in

deep depression; but there was not one who had not his ordinary ideas of

one thing or another. This restlessness, which, if it did not come to

the surface, was still unmistakable; those vague hopes of the poor

creatures which existed in spite of themselves, hopes so ill-founded

that they were more like the promptings of incipient insanity than aught

else; all this stamped the place with a character, an originality,

peculiarly its own. One could not but feel when one went there that

there was nothing like it anywhere else in the whole world. There

everybody went about in a sort of waking dream; nor was there anything

to relieve or qualify the impressions the place made on the system of

every man; so that all seemed to suffer from a sort of hyperæsthetic

neurosis, and this dreaming of impossibilities gave to the majority of

the convicts a sombre and morose aspect, for which the word morbid is

not strong enough. Nearly all were taciturn and irascible, preferring to

keep to themselves the hopes they secretly and vainly cherished. The

result was, that anything like ingenuousness or frank statement was the

object of general contempt. Precisely because these wild hopings were

impossible, and, despite themselves, were felt to be so, confessed to

their more lucid selves to be so, they kept them jealously concealed in

the most secret recesses of their souls; while to renounce them was

beyond their powers of self-control. It may be they were ashamed of

their imagination. God knows. The Russian character is, in its normal

conditions, so positive and sober in its way of looking at life, so

pitiless in criticism of its own weaknesses.

Perhaps it was this inward misery of self-dissatisfaction which was at

the bottom of the impatience and intolerance the convicts showed among

themselves, and of the cruel biting things they said to each other. If

one of them, more naïve or impartial than the rest, put into words what

every one of them had in his mind, painted his castles in the air, told

his dreams of liberty, or plans of escape, they shut him up with brutal

promptitude, and made the poor fellow’s life a burden to him with their

sarcasms and jests. And I think those did it most unscrupulously who had

perhaps themselves gone furthest in cherishing futile hopes, and

indulging in senseless expectations. I have said, more than once, that

those among them who were marked by simplicity and candour were looked

on rather as being stupid and idiotic; there was nothing but contempt

for them. The convicts were so soured and, in the wrong sense,

sensitive, that they positively hated anything like amiability or

unselfishness. I should be disposed to classify them all broadly, as

either good or bad men, morose or cheerful, putting by themselves, as a

sort of separate creatures, the ingenious fellows who could not hold

their tongues. But the sour-tempered were in far the greatest majority;

some of these were talkative, but these were usually of slanderous and

envious disposition, always poking their noses into other people’s

business, though they took good care not to let anybody have a glimpse

of the secret thoughts of their _own_ souls; that would have been

against the fashions and conventions of this strange, little world. As

to the fellows who were really good--very few indeed were they--these

were always very quiet and peaceable, and buried their hopes, if they

had any, in strict silence; but more of real faith went with their hopes

than was the case with the gloomy-minded among the convicts. Stay, there

was one category further among our convicts, which ought not to be

forgotten; the men who had lost all hope, who were despairing and

desperate, like the old man of Starodoub; but these were very few

indeed.

The old man of Starodoub! This was a very subdued, quiet, old man; but

there were some indications of what went on in him, which he could not

help giving, and from which, I could not help seeing, that his inward

life was one of intolerable horror; still he had _something_ to fall

back upon for help and consolation--prayer, and the notion that he was a

martyr. The convict who was always reading the Bible, of whom I spoke

earlier, the one that went mad and threw himself, brick in hand, upon

the Major, was also probably one of those whom hope had altogether

abandoned; and, as it is perfectly impossible to go on living without

hope of some sort, he threw away his life as a sort of voluntary

sacrifice. He declared that he attacked the Major though he had no

grievance in particular; all he wanted was to have some torments

inflicted on himself.

Now, what sort of psychological operation had been going on in _that_

man’s soul? No man lives, can live, without having _some_ object in

view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is

none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a

monster. The object _we_ all had in view was liberty, and getting out of

our place of confinement and hard labour.

So I try to place our convicts in separately-defined classes and

categories; but it cannot well be done. Reality is a thing of infinite

diversity, and defies the most ingenious deductions and definitions of

abstract thought, nay, abhors the clear and precise classifications we

so delight in. Reality tends to infinite subdivision of things, and

truth is a matter of infinite shadings and differentiations. Every one

of us who were there had his own peculiar, interior, strictly personal

life, which lay altogether outside of the world of regulations and our

official superintendence.

But, as I have said before, I could not penetrate the depths of this

interior life in the early part of my prison career, for everything that

met my eyes, or challenged my attention in any way, filled me with a

sadness for which there are no words. Sometimes I felt nothing short of

hatred for poor creatures whose martyrdom was at least as great as mine.

In those first days I envied them, because they were among persons of

their own sort, and understood one another; so I thought, but the truth

was that their enforced companionship, the comradeship where the word of

command went with the whip or the rod, was as much an object of aversion

to them as it was to myself, and every one of them tried to keep himself

as much to himself as possible. This envious hatred of them, which came

to me in moments of irritation, was not without its reasonable cause,

for those who tell you so confidently that a cultivated man of the

higher class does not suffer as a mere peasant does, are utterly in the

wrong. That is a thing I have often heard said, and read too. In the

abstract, the notion seems correct, and it is founded in generous

sentiment, for all convicts are human beings alike; but in reality it is

different. In the real living facts of the problem there come in a

quantity of practical complications, and only experience can pronounce

upon these: experience which I have had. I do not mean to lay it down

peremptorily, that the nobleman and the man of culture feel more

acutely, sensitively, deeply, because of their more highly developed

conditions of being. On the other hand, it is impossible to bring all

souls to one common level or standard; neither the grade of education,

nor any other thing, furnishes a standard according to which punishment

can be meted out.

It is a great satisfaction to me to be able to say that among these

dreadful sufferers, in a state of things so barbarous and abject, I

found abundant proof that the elements of moral development were not

wanting. In our convict establishment there were men whom I was familiar

with for several years, and whom I looked upon as wild beasts and

abhorred as such; well, all of a sudden, when I least expected it, these

very men would exhibit such an abundance of feeling of the best kind, so

keen a comprehension of the sufferings of others, seen in the light of

the consciousness of their own, that one might almost fancy scales had

fallen from their eyes. So sudden was it as to cause stupefaction; one

could scarcely believe one’s eyes or ears. Sometimes it was just the

other way: educated men, well brought up, would occasionally display a

savage, cynical brutality which nearly turned one’s stomach, conduct of

a kind impossible to excuse or justify, however much you might be

charitably inclined to do so.

I lay no stress on the entire change in the habits of life, the food,

etc., as to which there come in points where the man of the higher

classes suffers so much more keenly than the peasant or working man, who

often goes hungry when free, while he always has his stomach-full in

prison. We will leave all that out. Let it be admitted that for a man

with some force of character these external things are a trifle in

comparison with privations of a quite different kind; for all that, such

total change of material conditions and habits is neither an easy nor a

slight thing. But in the convict’s _status_ there are elements of horror

before which all other horrors pale, even the mud and filth everywhere

about, the scantiness and uncleanness of the food, the irons on your

limbs, the suffocating sense of being always held tight, as in a vice.

The capital, the most important point of all is, that after a couple of

hours or so, every new-comer to a convict establishment, who is of the

lower class, shakes down into equality with the rest; he is _at home_

among them, he has his “freedom” of this city of the enslaved, this

community of convicted scoundrels, in which one man is superficially

like every other man; he understands and is understood, he is looked

upon by everybody as _one of themselves_. Now all this is _not_ so in

the case of the nobleman. However kindly, just-minded, intelligent a man

of the higher class may be, every soul there will hate and despise him

during long years; they will neither understand nor believe in him, not

one whit. He will be neither friend nor comrade in their eyes; if he

can get them to stop insulting him it will be as much as he can do, but

he will be alien to them from the first to the last, he will have to

feel the grief of a ceaseless, hopeless, causeless solitude and

sequestration. Sometimes it is the case that sheer ill-will on the part

of the prisoners has nothing to do with bringing about this state of

things, it simply cannot be helped; the nobleman is not one of the gang,

and there’s the whole secret.

There is nothing more horrible than to live out of the social sphere to

which you properly belong. The peasant, transported from Taganrog to

Petropavlosk, finds there Russian peasants like himself; between him and

them there can be mutual intelligence; in an hour they will be friends,

and live comfortably together in the same izba or the same barrack. With

the nobleman it is wholly otherwise; a bottomless abyss separates him

from the lower classes, _how_ deep and impassable is only seen when a

nobleman forfeits his position and becomes as one of the populace

himself. You may be your whole life in daily relations with the peasant,

forty years you may do business with him regularly as the day comes--let

us suppose it so, at all events--by the calls of official position or

administrative duty; you may be his benefactor, all but a father to

him--well, you’ll never know what is at the bottom of the man’s mind or

heart. You may think you know something about him, but it is all optical

illusion, nothing more. My readers will charge me with exaggeration, but

I am convinced I am quite right. I don’t go on theory or book-reading in

this; in my case the realities of life have given me only too ample time

and opportunity for reviewing and correcting my theoretic convictions,

which, as to this, are now fixed. Perhaps everybody will some day learn

how well founded I am in what I say about this.

All this was theory when I first went into the convict establishment,

but events, and things observed, soon came to confirm me in such views,

and what I experienced so affected my system as to undermine its

health. During the first summer I wandered about the place, so far as I

was free to move, a solitary, friendless man. My moral situation was

such that I could not distinguish those among the convicts who, in the

sequel, managed to care for me a little in spite of the distance that

always remained between us. There _were_ there men of my own position,

ex-nobles like myself, but their companionship was repugnant to me.

Here is one of the incidents which obliged me to see at the outset, how

solitary a creature I was, and all the strangeness of my position at the

place. One day in August, a fine warm day, about one o’clock in the

afternoon, a time when, as a rule, everybody took a nap before resuming

work, the convicts rose as one man and massed themselves in the

court-yard. I had not the slightest idea, up to that moment, that

anything was going on. So deeply had I been sunk in my own thoughts,

that I saw nearly nothing of what was happening about me of any kind.

But it seems that the convicts had been in a smouldering sort of unusual

agitation for three days. Perhaps it had begun sooner; so I thought

later when I remembered stray remarks, bits of talk that had come to my

ears, the palpable increase of ill-humour among the prisoners, their

unusual irritability for some time past. I had attributed it all to the

trying summer work, the insufferably long days; to their dreamings about

the woods, and freedom, which the season brought up; to the nights too

short for rest. It may be that all these things came together to form a

mass of discontent, that only wanted a tolerably good reason for

exploding; it was found in the food.

For several days the convicts had not concealed their dissatisfaction

with it in open talk in their barracks, and they showed it plainly when

assembled for dinner or supper; one of the cooks had been changed, but,

after a couple of days, the new comer was sent to the right-about, and

the old one brought back. The restlessness and ill-humour were general;

mischief was brewing.

“Here are we slaving to death, and they give us nothing but filth to

eat,” grumbled one in the kitchen.

“If you don’t like it, why don’t you order jellies and blanc-mange?”

said another.

“Sour cabbage soup, why, that’s _good_. I delight in it; there’s nothing

more juicy,” exclaimed a third.

“Well, if they gave you nothing but beef, beef, beef, for ever and ever,

would you like _that_?”

“Yes, yes; they ought to give us meat,” said a fourth; “one’s almost

killed at the workshops; and, by heaven! when one has got through with

work there one’s hungry, hungry; and you don’t get anything to satisfy

your hunger.”

“It’s true, the victuals are simply damnable.”

“He fills his pockets, don’t you fear!”

“It isn’t your business.”

“Whose business is it? My belly’s my own. If we were all to make a row

about it together, you’d soon see.”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t we been beaten enough for complaining, dolt that you are?”

“True enough! What’s done in a hurry is never well done. And how would

you set about making a raid over it, tell me that?”

“I’ll tell you, by God! If everybody will go, I’ll go too, for I’m just

dying of hunger. It’s all very well for those who eat at a better table,

apart, to keep quiet; but those who eat the regulation food----”

“There’s a fellow with eyes that do their work, bursting with envy _he_

is. Don’t his eyes glisten when he sees something that doesn’t belong to

him?”

“Well, pals, why don’t we make up our minds? Have we gone through

enough? They flay us, the brigands! Let’s go at them.”

“What’s the good? I tell you ye must chew what they give you, and stuff

your mouth full of it. Look at the fellow, he wants people to chew his

food for him. We’re in prison, and have got to stand it.”

“Yes, that’s it; we’re in prison.”

“That’s it always; the people die of hunger, and the Government fills

its belly.”

“That’s true. Our eight-eyes (_the Major_) has got finely fat over it;

he’s bought a pair of gray horses.”

“He don’t like his glass at all, that fellow,” said a convict

ironically.

“He had a bout at cards a little while ago with the vet; for two hours

he played without a half-penny in his pocket. Fedka told me so.”

“That’s why we get cabbage soup that’s fit for nothing.”

“You’re all idiots! It doesn’t matter; _nothing_ matters.”

“I tell you if we all join in complaining we shall see what he has to

say for himself. Let’s make up our minds.”

“_Say_ for himself? You’ll get his fist on your pate; that’s just all.”

“I tell you they’ll have him up, and try him.”

All the prisoners were in great agitation; the truth is, the food was

execrable. The general anguish, suffering, and suspense seemed to be

coming to a head. Convicts are, by disposition, or, as such, quarrelsome

and rebellious; but a general revolt is rare, for they can never agree

upon it; we all of us felt that since there was, as a rule, more violent

talk than doing.

This time, however, the agitation did not fall to the ground. The men

gathered in groups in their barracks, talking things over in a violent

way, and going over all the particulars of the Major’s misdoings, and

trying to get to the bottom of them. In all affairs of that sort there

are ringleaders and firebrands. The ringleaders on such occasions are

generally rather remarkable fellows, not only in convict

establishments, but among all large organisations of workmen, military

detachments, etc. They are always people of a peculiar type,

enthusiastic men, who have a thirst for justice, very naïve, simple, and

strong, convinced that their desires are fully capable of realisation;

they have as much sense as other people; some are of high intelligence;

but they are too full of warmth and zeal to measure their acts. When you

come across people who really do know how to direct the masses, and get

what they want, you find a quite different sort of popular leaders, and

one excessively rare among us Russians. The more usual type of leader,

the one I first alluded to, does certainly in some sense accomplish

their object, so far as bringing about a rising is concerned; but it all

ends in filling up the prisons and convict establishments. Thanks to

their impetuosity they always come off second-best; but it is this

impetuosity that gives them their influences over the masses; their

ardent, honest indignation does its work, and draws in the more

irresolute. Their blind confidence of success seduces even the most

hardened sceptics, although this confidence is generally based on such

uncertain, childish reasons that it is wonderful how people can put

faith in them.

The secret of their influence is that they put themselves at the head,

and _go_ ahead, without flinching. They dash forward, heads down, often

without the least knowledge worth the name of what they are about, and

have nothing about them of the jesuitical practical faculty by dint of

which a vile and worthless man often hits his mark and comes uppermost,

and will sometimes come all white out of a tub of ink. They _must_ dash

their skulls against stone walls. Under ordinary circumstances these

people are bilious, irascible, intolerant, contemptuous, often very

warm, which really after all is part of the secret of their strength.

The deplorable thing is that they never go at what is the essential, the

vital part of their task, they always go off at once into details

instead of going straight to their mark, and this is their ruin. But

they and the mob understand one another; that makes them formidable.

I must say a few words about this word “grievance.”

Some of the convicts had been transported in connection with a

“grievance;” these were the most excited among them, notably a certain

Martinoff, who had formerly served in the Hussars, an eager, restless,

and choleric, but a worthy and truthful, fellow. Another, Vassili

Antonoff, could work himself up into anger coolly and collectedly; he

had a generally impudent expression, and a sarcastic smile, but he, too,

was honest, and a man of his word, and of no little education. I won’t

enumerate; there were plenty of them. Petroff went about in a hurried

way from one group to another. He spoke few words, but he was quite as

highly excited as any one there, for he was the first to spring out of

the barrack when the others massed themselves in the court-yard.

Our sergeant, who acted as sergeant-major, came up very soon in quite a

fright. The convicts got into rank, and politely begged him to tell the

Major that they wanted to speak with him and put him a few questions.

Behind the sergeant came all the invalids, who ranked themselves in face

of the convicts. What they asked the sergeant to do frightened the man

out of his wits almost, but he dared not refuse to go and report to the

Major, for if the convicts mutinied, God only knows what might happen.

All the men set over us showed themselves great poltroons in handling

the prisoners; then, even if nothing further worse happened, if the

convicts thought better of it and dispersed, the sub-officer was still

in duty bound to inform the authorities of what had been going on. Pale,

and trembling with fright, he went headlong to the Major, without even

an effort to bring the convicts to reason. He saw that they were not

minded to put up with any of his talk, no doubt.

Without the least idea of what was going on, I went into rank myself

(it was only later that I heard the earlier details of the story). I

thought that the muster-roll was to be called, but I did not see the

soldiers who verify the lists, so I was surprised, and began to look

about me a little. The men’s faces were working with emotion, and some

were ghostly pale. They were sternly silent, and seemed to be thinking

of what they should say to the Major. I observed that many of the

convicts seemed to wonder at seeing me among them, but they turned their

glances away from me. No doubt they thought it strange that I should

come into the ranks with them, and join in their remonstrances, and

could not quite believe it. Then they turned round to me again in a

questioning sort of way.

“What are you doing here?” said Vassili Antonoff, in a loud, rude voice;

he happened to be close to me, and a little way from the rest; the man

had always hitherto been scrupulously polite to me.

I looked at him in perplexity, trying to understand what he meant by it;

I began to see that something extraordinary was up in our prison.

“Yes, indeed, what are you about here? Go off into the barrack,” said a

young fellow, a soldier-convict, whom I did not know till then, and who

was a good, quiet lad, “this is none of _your_ business.”

“Have we not fallen into rank,” I answered, “aren’t we going to be

mustered?”

“Why, _he’s_ come, too,” cried one of them.

“Iron-nose,”[7] said another.

“Fly-killer,” added a third, with inexpressible contempt for me in his

tone. This new nickname caused a general burst of laughter.

“These fellows are in clover everywhere. We are in prison, with hard

labour, I rather fancy; they get wheat-bread and sucking-pig, like great

lords as they are. Don’t you get your victuals by yourself? What are you

doing here?”

“Your place is not here,” said Koulikoff to me brusquely, taking me by

the hand and leading me out of the ranks.

He was himself very pale; his dark eyes sparkled with fire, he had

bitten his under lip till the blood came; he wasn’t one of those who

expected the Major without losing self-possession.

I liked to look at Koulikoff when he was in trying circumstances like

these; then he showed himself just what he was in his strong points and

weak. He attitudinised, but he knew how to act, too. I think he would

have gone to his death with a certain affected elegance. While everybody

was insulting me in words and tones, his politeness was greater than

ever; but he spoke in a firm and resolved tone which admitted of no

reply.

“We are here on business of our own, Alexander Petrovitch, and you’ve

got to keep out of it. Go where you like and wait till it’s over ...

here, your people are in the kitchens, go there.”

“They’re in hot quarters down there.”

I did in fact see our Poles at the open window of the kitchen, in

company with a good many other convicts. I did not well know what to be

at; but went there followed by laughter, insulting remarks, and that

sort of muttered growling which is the prison substitute for the

hissings and cat-calls of the world of freedom.

“He doesn’t like it at all! Chu, chu, chu! Seize him!”

I had never been so bitterly insulted since I was in the place. It was a

very painful moment, but just what was to be expected in the excessive

excitement the men were labouring under. In the ante-room I met T--vski,

a young nobleman of not much information, but of firm, generous

character; the convicts excepted him from the hatred they felt for the

convicts of noble birth; they were almost fond of him; every one of his

gestures denoted the brave and energetic man.

“What are you about, Goriantchikoff?” he cried to me; “come here, come

here!”

“But what is _it_ all about?”

“They are going to make a formal complaint, don’t you know it? It won’t

do them a bit of good; who’ll pay any attention to convicts? They’ll try

to find out the ringleaders, and if we are among them they’ll lay it all

on us. Just remember what we have been transported for. They’ll only get

a whipping, but we shall be put regularly to trial. The Major detests us

all, and will be only too happy to ruin us; all his sins will fall on

our shoulders.”

“The convicts would tie us hands and feet and sell us directly,” added

M--tski, when we got into the kitchen.

“They’ll never have mercy on _us_,” added T--vski.

Besides the nobles there were in the kitchen about thirty other

prisoners who did not want to join in the general complaints, some

because they were afraid, others because of their conviction that the

whole proceeding would prove quite useless. Akim Akimitch, who was a

decided opponent of everything that savoured of complaint, or that could

interfere with discipline and the usual routine, waited with great

phlegm to see the end of the business, about which he did not care a

jot. He was perfectly convinced that the authorities would put it all

down immediately.

Isaiah Fomitch’s nose drooped visibly as he listened in a sort of

frightened curiosity to what we said about the affair; he was much

disturbed. With the Polish nobles were some inferior persons of the same

nation, as well as some Russians, timid, dull, silent fellows, who had

not dared to join the rest, and who waited in a melancholy way to see

what the issue would be. There were also some morose, discontented

convicts, who remained in the kitchen, not because they were afraid, but

that they thought this half-revolt an absurdity which could not

succeed; it seemed to me that these were not a little disturbed, and

their faces were quite unsteady. They saw clearly that they were in the

right, and that the issue of the movement would be what they had

foretold, but they had a sort of feeling that they were traitors who had

sold their comrades to the Major. Jolkin--the long-headed Siberian

peasant sent to hard labour for coining, the man who got Koulikoff’s

town practice from him--was there also, as well as the old man of

Starodoub. None of the cooks had left their post, perhaps because they

looked upon themselves as belonging specially to the authorities of the

place, whom it would be unbecoming, therefore, to join in opposing.

“For all that,” said I to M--tski, “except these fellows, all the

convicts are in it,” and no doubt I said it in a way that showed

misgivings.

“I wonder what in the world _we_ have to do with it?” growled B----.

“We should have risked a good deal more than they had we gone with them;

and why? _Je hais ces brigands._[8] Why, do you think that they’ll bring

themselves up to the scratch after all? I can’t see what they want

putting their heads in the lion’s mouth, the fools.”

“It’ll all come to nothing,” said some one, an obstinate, sour-tempered

old fellow. Almazoff, who was with us too, agreed heartily in this.

“Some fifty of them will get a good beating, and that’s all the good

they’ll all get out of it.”

“Here’s the Major!” cried one; everybody ran to the windows.

The Major had come up, spectacles and all, looking as wicked as might

be, towering with passion, red as a turkey-cock. He came on without a

word, and in a determined manner, right up to the line of the convicts.

In conjunctures of this sort he showed uncommon pluck and presence of

mind; but it ought not to be overlooked that he was nearly always

half-seas over. Just then his greasy cap, with its yellow border, and

his tarnished silver epaulettes, gave him a Mephistophelic look in my

excited fancy. Behind him came the quartermaster, Diatloff, who was

quite a personage in the establishment, for he was really at the bottom

of all the authorities did. He was an exceedingly capable and cunning

fellow, and wielded great influence with the Major. He was not by any

means a bad sort of man, and the convicts were, in a general way, not

ill-inclined towards him. Our sergeant followed him with three or four

soldiers, no more; he had already had a tremendous wigging, and there

was plenty more of the same to come, if he knew it. The convicts, who

had remained uncovered, cap in hand, from the moment they sent for the

Major, stiffened themselves, every man shifting his weight to the other

leg; then they remained motionless, and waited for the first word, or

the first shout rather, to come from him.

They had not long to wait. Before he had got more than one word out, the

Major began to shout at the top of his voice; he was beside himself with

rage. We saw him from the windows running all along the line of

convicts, dashing at them here and there with angry questions. As we

were a pretty good distance off, we could not hear what he said or their

replies. We only heard his shouts, or rather what seemed shouting,

groaning, and grunting beautifully mingled.

“Scoundrels! mutineers! to the cat with ye! Whips and sticks! The

ringleaders? _You’re_ one of the ringleaders!” throwing himself on one

of them.

We did not hear the answer; but a minute after we saw this convict leave

the ranks and make for the guard-house.

Another followed, then a third.

“I’ll have you up, every man of you. I’ll---- Who’s in the kitchen

there?” he bawled, as he saw us at the open windows. “Here with all of

you! Drive ’em all out, every man!”

Diatloff, the quartermaster, came towards the kitchens. When we had

told him that _we_ were not complaining of any grievance, he returned,

and reported to the Major at once.

“Ah, those fellows are not in it,” said he, lowering his tone a bit, and

much pleased. “Never mind, bring them along here.”

We left the kitchen. I could not help feeling humiliation; all of us

went along with our heads down.

“Ah, Prokofief! Jolkin too; and you, Almazof! Here, come here, all the

lump of you!” cried the Major to us, with a gasp; but he was somewhat

softened, his tone was even obliging. “M--tski, you’re here too?... Take

down the names. Diatloff, take down all the names, the grumblers in one

list and the contented ones in another--all, without exception; you’ll

give me the list. I’ll have you all before the Committee of

Superintendence.... I’ll ... brigands!”

This word “_list_” told.

“We’ve nothing to complain of!” cried one of the malcontents, in a

half-strangled sort of voice.

“Ah, you’ve nothing to complain of! _Who’s_ that? Let all those who have

nothing to complain of step out of the ranks.”

“All of us, all of us!” came from some others.

“Ah, the food is all right, then? You’ve been put up to it. Ringleaders,

mutineers, eh? So much the worse for them.”

“But, what do you mean by that?” came from a voice in the crowd.

“Where is the fellow that said that?” roared the Major, throwing himself

to where the voice came from. “It was you, Rastorgouïef, you; to the

guard-house with you.”

Rastorgouïef, a young, chubby fellow of high stature, left the ranks and

went with slow steps to the guard-house. It was not he who had said it,

but, as he was called out, he did not venture to contradict.

“You fellows are too fat, that’s what makes you unruly!” shouted the

Major. “You wait, you hulking rascal, in three days you’d---- Wait! I’ll

have it out with you all. Let all those who have nothing to complain of

come out of the ranks, I say----”

“We’re not complaining of anything, your worship,” said some of the

convicts with a sombre air; the rest preserved an obstinate silence. But

the Major wanted nothing further; it was his interest to stop the thing

with as little friction as might be.

“Ah, _now_ I see! _Nobody_ has anything to complain of,” said he. “I

knew it, I saw it all. It’s ringleaders, there are ringleaders, by God,”

he went on, speaking to Diatloff. “We must lay our hands on them, every

man of them. And now--now--it’s time to go to your work. Drummer, there;

drummer, a roll!”

He told them off himself in small detachments. The convicts dispersed

sadly and silently, only too glad to get out of his sight. Immediately

after the gangs went off, the Major betook himself to the guard-house,

where he began to make his dispositions as to the “ringleaders,” but he

did not push matters far. It was easy to see that he wanted to be done

with the whole business as soon as possible. One of the men charged told

us later that he had begged for forgiveness, and that the officer had

let him go immediately. There can be no doubt that our Major did not

feel firm in the saddle; he had had a fright, I fancy, for a mutiny is

always a ticklish thing, and although this complaint of the convicts

about the food did not amount really to mutiny (only the Major had been

reported to about it, and the Governor himself), yet it was an

uncomfortable and dangerous affair. What gave him most anxiety was that

the prisoners had been unanimous in their movement, so their discontent

had to be got over somehow, at any price. The ringleaders were soon set

free. Next day the food was passable, but this improvement did not last

long; on the days ensuing the disturbance, the Major went about the

prison much more than usual, and always found something irregular to be

stopped and punished. Our sergeant came and went in a puzzled, dazed

sort of way, as if he could not get over his stupefaction at what had

happened. As to the convicts, it took long for them to quiet down again,

but their agitation seemed to wear quite a different character; they

were restless and perplexed. Some went about with their heads down,

without saying a word; others discussed the event in a grumbling,

helpless kind of way. A good many said biting things about their own

proceedings as though they were quite out of conceit with themselves.

“I say, pal, take and eat!” said one.

“Where’s the mouse that was so ready to bell the cat?”

“Let’s think ourselves lucky that he did not have us all well beaten.”

“It would be a good deal better if you thought more and chattered less.”

“What do _you_ mean by lecturing me? Are you schoolmaster here, I’d like

to know?”

“Oh, you want putting to the right-about.”

“Who are you, I’d like to know?”

“I’m a man! What are you?”

“A man! You’re----”

“You’re----”

“I say! Shut up, do! What’s the good of all this row?” was the cry from

all sides.

On the evening of the day the “mutiny” took place, I met Petroff behind

the barracks after the day’s work. He was looking for me. As he came

near me, I heard him exclaim something, which I didn’t understand, in a

muttering sort of way; then he said no more, and walked by my side in a

listless, mechanical fashion.

“I say, Petroff, your fellows are not vexed with us, are they?”

“Who’s vexed?” he asked, as if coming to himself.

“The convicts with us--with us nobles.”

“Why should they be vexed?”

“Well, because we did not back them up.”

“Oh, why should you have kicked up a dust?” he answered, as if trying to

enter into my meaning: “you have a table to yourselves, you fellows.”

“Oh, well, there are some of you, not nobles, who don’t eat the

regulation food, and who went in with you. We ought to back you up,

we’re in the same place; we ought to be comrades.”

“Oh, I _say_. Are you our comrades?” he asked, with unfeigned

astonishment.

I looked at him; it was clear that he had not the least comprehension of

my meaning; but I, on the other hand, entered only too thoroughly into

his. I saw now, quite thoroughly, something of which I had before only a

confused idea; what I had before guessed at was now sad certainty.

It was forced on my perceptions that any sort of real fellowship between

the convicts and myself could never be; not even were I to remain in the

place as long as life should last. I was a convict of the “special

section,” a creature for ever apart. The expression of Petroff when he

said, “are we comrades, how can that be?” remains, and will always

remain before my eyes. There was a look of such frank, naïve surprise in

it, such ingenuous astonishment that I could not help asking myself if

there was not some lurking irony in the man, just a little spiteful

mockery. Not at all, it was simply meant. I was not their comrade, and

could not be; that was all. Go you to the right, we’ll go to the left!

your business is yours, ours is ours.

I really fancied that, after the mutiny, they would attack us

mercilessly so far as they dared and could, and that our life would

become a hell. But nothing of the sort happened; we did not hear the

slightest reproach, there was not even an unpleasant allusion to what

had happened, it was all simply passed over. They went on teasing us as

before when opportunity served, no more. Nobody seemed to bear malice

against those who would not join in, but remained in the kitchens, or

against those who were the first to cry out that they had nothing to

complain of. It was all passed over without a word, to my exceeding

astonishment.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] An insulting phrase which is untranslatable.

[8] French in the original Russian.

CHAPTER VIII.

MY COMPANIONS

As will be understood, those to whom I was most drawn were people of my

own sort, that is, those of “noble” birth, especially in the early days;

but of the three ex-nobles in the place, who were Russians, I knew and

spoke to but one, Akim Akimitch; the other two were the spy A--v, and

the supposed parricide. Even with Akim I never exchanged a word except

when in extremity, in moments when the melancholy on me was simply

unendurable, and when I thought I really never should have the chance of

getting close to any other human being again.

In the last chapter I have tried to show that the convicts were of

different types, and tried to classify them; but when I think of Akim

Akimitch I don’t know how to place him, he was quite _sui generis_, so

far as I could observe, in that establishment.

There may be, elsewhere, men like him, to whom it seemed as absolutely a

matter of indifference whether he was a free man, or in jail at hard

labour; at that place he stood alone in this curious impartiality of

temperament. He had settled down in the jail as if he was going to pass

his whole life, and didn’t mind it at all. All his belongings, mattress,

cushions, utensils, were so ordered as to give the impression that he

was living in a furnished house of his own; there was nothing

provisional, temporary, bivouac-like, about him, or his words, or his

habits. He had a good many years still to spend in punishment, but I

much doubt whether he ever gave a thought to the time when he would get

out. He was entirely reconciled to his condition, not because he had

made any effort to be so, but simply out of natural submissiveness; but,

as far as his comfort went, it came to the same thing. He was not at all

a bad fellow, and in the early days his advice and help were quite

useful to me; but sometimes, I can’t help saying it, his peculiarities

deepened my natural melancholy until it became almost intolerable

anguish.

When I became desperate with silence and solitude of soul, I would get

into talk with him; I wanted to hear, and reply to _some_ words falling

from a living soul, and the more filled with gall and hatred with all

our surroundings they had been, the more would they have been in

sympathy with my wretched mood; but he would just barely talk, quietly

go on sizing his lanterns, and then begin to tell me some story as to

how he had been at a review of troops in 18--, that their general of

division was so-and-so, that the manœuvring had been very pretty, that

there had been a change in the skirmisher’s system of signalling, and

the like; all of it in level imperturbable tones, like water falling

drop by drop. He did not put any life into them even when he told me of

a sharp affair in which he had been, in the Caucasus, for which his

sword had got the decoration of the Riband of St. Anne. The only

difference was, that his voice became a little more measured and grave;

he lowered his tones when he pronounced the name “St. Anne,” as though

he were telling a great secret, and then, for three minutes at least,

did not utter a word, but only looked solemn.

During all that first year I had strange passages of feeling, in which I

hated Akim Akimitch with a bitter hatred, I am sure I cannot say why,

moments when I would despairingly curse the fate which made him my next

neighbour on my camp-bed, so close indeed that our heads nearly touched.

An hour afterwards I bitterly reproached myself for such extravagance.

It was, however, only during my first year of confinement that these

violent feelings overpowered me. As time went on, I got used to Akim

Akimitch’s singular character, and was ashamed of my former explosions.

I don’t remember that he and I ever got into anything like an open

quarrel.

Besides the three Russian nobles of whom I have spoken, there were eight

others there during my time; with some of whom I came to be on a footing

of intimate friendship. Even the best of them were morbid in mind,

exclusive, and intolerant to the very last degree; with two of them I

was obliged to discontinue all spoken intercourse. There were only three

who had any education, B--ski, M--tski, and the old man, J--ski, who had

formerly been a professor of mathematics, an excellent fellow, highly

eccentric, and of very narrow mental horizon in spite of his learning.

M--tski and B--ski were of a mould quite different from his. Between

M--tski and myself there was an excellent understanding from the first

set-off. He and I never once got into any sort of dispute; I respected

him highly, but could never become sincerely attached to him, though I

tried to. He was sour, embittered, and mistrustful, with much

self-control; this was quite antipathetic to me; the man had a closed

soul, closed to everybody, and he made you feel it. I felt it so

strongly that perhaps I was wrong about it. After all, his character, I

must say, was stamped with both nobleness and strength. His inveterate

scepticism made him very prudent in his relations with everybody about

him, and in conducting these he gave proof of remarkable tact and skill.

Sceptic as he was, there was another and a reverse side in his nature,

for in some things he was a profound and unalterable believer with faith

and hope unshakable. In spite of his tact in dealing with men, he got

into open hostilities with B--ski and his friend T--ski.

The first of these, B--ski, was a man of infirm health, of consumptive

tendency, irascible, and of a weak, nervous system; but a good and

generous man. His nervous irritability went so far that he was as

capricious as a child; a temperament of that kind was too much for me

there, so I soon saw as little of B--ski as I could possibly help,

though I never ceased to like him much. It was just the other way so far

as M--tski was concerned; with him I always was on easy terms, though I

did not like him at all. When I edged away from B--ski, I had to break

also, more or less, with T--ski, of whom I spoke in the last chapter,

which I much regretted, for, though of little education, he had an

excellent heart; a worthy, very spiritual man. He loved and respected

B--ski so much that those who broke with that friend of his he regarded

as his personal enemies. He quarrelled with M--tski on account of

B--ski, and they kept up the difference a long while. All these people

were as bilious as they could be, humoursome, mistrustful, the victims

of a moral and physical supersensitiveness. It is not to be wondered at;

their position was trying indeed, much more so than ours; they were all

exiled, transported, for ten or twelve years; and what made their

sojourn in the prison most distressing to them was their rooted,

ingrained prejudice, especially their unfortunate way of regarding the

convicts, which they could not get over; in their eyes the unhappy

fellows were mere wild beasts, without a single recognisable human

quality. Everything in their previous career and their present

circumstances combined to produce this unhappy feeling in them.

Their life at the jail was perpetual torment to them. They were kindly

and conversible with the Circassians, with the Tartars, with Isaiah

Fomitch; but for the other prisoners they had nothing but contempt and

aversion. The only one they had any real respect for was the aged “old

believer.” For all this, during all the time I spent at the convict

establishment, I never knew a single prisoner to reproach them with

either their birth, or religious opinions, or convictions, as is so

usual with our common people in their relations with people of different

condition, especially if these happen to be foreigners. The fact is,

they cannot take the foreigner seriously; to the Russian common people

he seems a merely grotesque, comical creature. Our convicts had and

showed much more respect for the Polish nobles than for us Russians, but

I don’t think the Poles cared about the matter, or took any notice of

the difference.

I spoke just now of T--ski, and have something more to say of him. When

he had with his friend to leave the first place assigned to them as

residence in their banishment to come to our fortress, he carried his

friend B---- nearly the whole way. B---- was of quite a weak frame, and

in bad health, and became exhausted before half of the first march was

accomplished. They had first been banished to Y--gorsk, where they lived

in tolerable comfort; life was much less hard there than in our

fortress. But in consequence of a correspondence with the exiles in one

of the other towns--a quite innocent exchange of letters--it was thought

necessary to remove them to our jail to be under the more direct

surveillance of the government. Until they came M--tski had been quite

alone, and dreadful must have been his sufferings in that first year of

his banishment.

J--ski was the old man always deep in prayer, of whom I spoke a little

earlier. All the political convicts were quite young men while J--ski

was at least fifty years old. He was a worthy, gentlemanlike person, if

eccentric. T--ski and B--ski detested him, and never spoke to him; they

insisted upon it that he was too obstinate and troublesome to put up

with, and I was obliged to admit it was so. I believe that at a convict

establishment--as in every place where people have to be together,

whether they like it or not--people are more ready to quarrel with and

detest one another than under other circumstances. Many causes

contributed to the squabbles that were, unfortunately, always going on.

J--ski was really disagreeable and narrow-minded; not one of those about

him was on good terms with him. He and I did not come to a rupture, but

we were never on a really friendly footing. I fancy that he was a strong

mathematician. One day he explained to me in his half-Russian,

half-Polish jargon, a system of astronomy of his own; I have been told

that he had written a work upon the subject which the learned world had

received with derision; I fancy his reasonings on some things had got

twisted. He used to be on his knees praying for a whole day sometimes,

which made the convicts respect him exceedingly during the remnant of

life he had to pass there; he died under my eyes at the jail after a

very trying illness. He had won the consideration of the prisoners, from

the first moment of his coming in, on account of what had happened with

the Major and him. When they were brought afoot from Y--gorsk to our

fortress, they were not shaved on the road at all, their hair and beards

had grown to great lengths when they were brought before the Major. That

worthy foamed like a madman; he was wild with indignation at such

infraction of discipline, though it was none of their fault.

“My God! did you ever see anything like it?” he roared; “they are

vagabonds, brigands.”

J--ski knew very little Russian, and fancied that he was asking them if

they were brigands or vagabonds, so he answered:

“We are political prisoners, not rogues and vagabonds.”

“So-o-o! You mean impudence! Clod!” howled the Major. “To the

guard-house with him; a hundred strokes of the rod at once, this

instant, I say!”

They gave the old man the punishment; he lay flat on the ground under

the strokes without the slightest resistance, kept his hand in his

teeth, and bore it all without a murmur, and without moving a muscle.

B--ski and T--ski arrived at the jail as this was all going on, and

M--ski was waiting for them at the principal gate, knowing that they

were just coming in; he threw himself on their neck, although he had

never seen them before. Utterly disgusted at the way the Major had

received them, they told M--ski all about the cruel business that had

just occurred. M--ski told me later that he was quite beside himself

with rage when he heard it.

“I could not contain myself for passion,” he said, “I shook as though

with ague. I waited for J--ski at the great gate, for he would come

straight that way from the guard-house after his punishment. The gate

was opened, and there I saw pass before me J--ski, his lips all white

and trembling, his face pale as death; he did not look at a single

person, and passed through the groups of convicts assembled in the

court-yard--they knew a noble had just been subjected to

punishment--went into the barrack, went straight to his place, and,

without a word, dropped down on his knees for prayer. The prisoners were

surprised and even affected. When I saw this old man with white hairs,

who had left behind him at home a wife and children, kneeling and

praying after that scandalous treatment, I rushed away from the barrack,

and for a couple of hours felt as if I had gone stark, staring, raving

mad, or blind drunk.... From that first moment the convicts were full of

deference and consideration for J--ski; what particularly pleased them,

was that he did not utter a cry when undergoing the punishment.”

But one must be fair and tell the truth about this sort of thing; this

sad story is not an instance of what frequently occurs in the treatment

by the authorities of transported noblemen, Russian or Polish; and this

isolated case affords no basis for passing judgment upon that treatment.

My anecdote merely shows that you may light upon a bad man anywhere and

everywhere. And if it happen that such a one is in absolute command of a

jail, and if he happen to have a grudge against one of the prisoners,

the lot of such a one will be indeed very far from enviable. But the

administrative chiefs who regulate and supervise convict labour in

Siberia, and from whom subordinates take their tone as well as their

orders, are careful to exercise a discriminating treatment in the case

of persons of noble birth, and, in some cases, grant them special

indulgences as compared with the lot of convicts of lower condition.

There are obvious reasons for this; these heads of departments are

nobles themselves, they know that men of that class must not be driven

to extremity; cases have been known where nobles have refused to submit

to corporal punishment, and flung themselves desperately on their

tormentors with very grave and serious consequences indeed;

moreover--and this, I think, is the leading cause of the good

treatment--some time ago, thirty-five years at least, there were

transported to Siberia quite a crowd of noblemen;[9] these were of such

correct and irreproachable demeanour, and held themselves so high, that

the heads of departments fell into the way, which they never afterwards

left, of regarding criminals of noble birth and ordinary convicts in

quite a different manner; and men in lower place took their cue from

them.

Many of these, no doubt, were little pleased with that disposition in

their superiors; such persons were pleased enough when they could do

exactly as they liked in the matter, but this did not often happen, they

were kept well within bounds; I have reason to be satisfied of this and

I will say why. I was put in the second category, a classification of

those condemned to hard labour, which was primarily and principally

composed of convicts who had been serfs, under military superintendence;

now this second category, or class, was much harder than the first (of

the mines) or the third (manufacturing work). It was harder, not only

for the nobles but for the other convicts too, because the governing and

administrative methods and _personnel_ in it were wholly military, and

were pretty much the same in type as those of the convict establishments

in Russia. The men in official position were severer, the general

treatment more rigorous than in the two other classes; the men were

never out of irons, an escort of soldiers was always present, you were

always, or nearly so, within stone walls; and things were quite

different in the other classes, at least so the convicts said, and there

were those among them who had every reason to know. They would all have

gladly gone off to the mines, which the law classified as the worst and

last punishment, it was their constant dream and desire to do so. All

those who had been in the Russian convict establishments spoke with

horror of them, and declared that there was no hell like them, that

Siberia was a paradise compared with confinement in the fortresses in

Russia.

If, then, it is the case that we nobles were treated with special

consideration in the establishment I was confined in, which was under

direct control of the Governor-General, and administered entirely on

military principles, there must have been some greater kindliness in the

treatment of the convicts of the first and third category or class. I

think I can speak with some authority about what went on throughout

Siberia in these respects, and I based my views, as to this, upon all

that I heard from convicts of these classes. We, in our prison, were

under much more rigorous surveillance than was elsewhere practised; we

were favoured with no sort of exemptions from the ordinary rules as

regards work and confinement, and the wearing of chains; we could not do

anything for ourselves to get immunity from the rules, for I, at least,

knew quite well that, _in the good old time which was quite of

yesterday_, there had been so much intriguing to undermine the credit of

officials that the authorities were greatly afraid of informers, and

that, as things stood, to show indulgence to a convict was regarded as a

crime. Everybody, therefore, authorities and convicts alike, was in fear

of what might happen; we of the nobles were thus quite down to the level

of the other convicts; the only point we were favoured in was in regard

to corporal punishment--but I think that we should have had even that

inflicted on us had we done anything for which it was prescribed, for

equality as to punishment was strictly enjoined or practised; what I

mean is, that we were not wantonly, causelessly, mishandled like the

other prisoners.

When the Governor got to know of the punishment inflicted on J--ski, he

was seriously angry with the Major, and ordered him to be more careful

for the future. The thing got very generally known. We learned also that

the Governor-General, who had great confidence in our Major, and who

liked him because of his exact observance of legal bounds, and thought

highly of his qualities in the service, gave him a sharp scolding. And

our Major took the lesson to heart. I have no doubt it was this

prevented his having M--ski beaten, which he would much have liked to

do, being much influenced by the slanderous things A--f said about

M----; but the Major could never get a fair pretext for doing so,

however much he persecuted and set spies upon his proposed victim; so he

had to deny himself that pleasure. The J--ski affair became known all

through the town, and public opinion condemned the Major; some persons

reproached him openly for what he had done, and some even insulted him.

The first occasion on which the man crossed my path may as well be

mentioned. We had alarming things reported to us--to me and another

nobleman under sentence--about the abominable character of this man,

while we were still at Tobolsk. Men who had been sentenced a long while

back to twenty-five years of the misery, nobles as we were, and who had

visited us so kindly during our provisional sojourn in the first

prison, had warned us what sort of man we were to be under; they had

also promised to do all they could for us with their friends to see that

he hurt us as little as possible. And, in fact, they did write to the

three daughters of the Governor-General, who, I believe, interceded on

our behalf with their father. But what could he do? No more, of course,

than tell the Major to be fair in applying the rules and regulations to

our case. It was about three in the afternoon that my companion and

myself arrived in the town; our escort took us at once to our tyrant. We

remained waiting for him in the ante-chamber while they went to find the

next-in-command at the prison. As soon as the latter had come, in walked

the Major. We saw an inflamed scarlet face that boded no good, and

affected us quite painfully; he seemed like a sort of spider about to

throw itself on a poor fly wriggling in its web.

“What’s your name, man?” said he to my companion. He spoke with a harsh,

jerky voice, as if he wanted to overawe us.

My friend gave his name.

“And you?” said he, turning to me and glaring at me behind his

spectacles.

I gave mine.

“Sergeant! take ’em to the prison, and let ’em be shaved at the

guard-house, civilian-fashion, hair off half their skulls, and let ’em

be put in irons to-morrow. Why, what sort of cloaks have you got there?”

said he brutally, when he saw the gray cloaks with yellow sewn at the

back which they had given to us at Tobolsk. “Why, that’s a new uniform,

begad--a new uniform! They’re always getting up something or other.

That’s a Petersburg trick,” he said, as he inspected us one after the

other. “Got anything with them?” he said abruptly to the gendarme who

escorted us.

“They’ve got their own clothes, your worship,” replied he; and the man

carried arms, just as if on parade, not without a nervous tremor.

Everybody knew the fellow, and was afraid of him.

“Take their clothes away from them. They can’t keep anything but their

linen, their white things; take away all their coloured things if

they’ve got any, and sell them off at the next sale, and put the money

to the prison account. A convict has no property,” said he, looking

severely at us. “Hark ye! Behave prettily; don’t let me have any

complaining. If I do--cat-o’-nine-tails! The smallest offence, and to

the sticks you go!”

This way of receiving me, so different from anything I had ever known,

made me nearly ill that night. It was a frightful thing to happen at the

very moment of entering the infernal place. But I have already told that

part of my story.

Thus we had no sort of exemption or immunity from any of the miseries

inflicted there, no lightening of our labours when with the other

convicts; but friends tried to help us by getting us sent for three

months, B--ski and me, to the bureau of the Engineers, to do copying

work. This was done quietly, and as much as possible kept from being

talked about or observed. This piece of kindness was done for us by the

head engineers, during the short time that Lieutenant-Colonel G--kof was

Governor at our prison. This gentleman had command there only for six

short months, for he soon went back to Russia. He really seemed to us

all like an angel of goodness sent from heaven, and the feeling for him

among the convicts was of the strongest kind; it was not mere love, it

was something like adoration. I cannot help saying so. How he did it I

don’t know, but their hearts went out to him from the moment they first

set eyes on him.

“He’s more like a father than anything else,” the prisoners kept

continually saying during all the time he was there at the head of the

engineering department. He was a brilliant, joyous fellow. He was of low

stature, with a bold, confident expression, and he was all gracious

kindness to the convicts, for whom he really did seem to entertain a

fatherly sort of affection. How was it he was so fond of them? It is

hard to say, but he seemed never to be able to pass a prisoner without a

bit of pleasant talk and a little laughing and joking together. There

was nothing that smacked of authority in his pleasantries, nothing that

reminded them of his position over them. He behaved just as if he was

one of themselves. In spite of this kind condescension, I don’t remember

any one of the convicts ever failing in respect to him or taking the

slightest liberty--quite the other way. The convict’s face would light

up in a wonderful, sudden way when he met the Governor; it was odd to

see how the face smiled all over, and the hand went to the cap, when the

Governor was seen in the distance making for the poor man. A word from

him was regarded as a signal honour. There are some people like that,

who know how to win all hearts.

G--kof had a bold, jaunty air, walked with long strides, holding himself

very straight; “a regular eagle,” the convicts used to call him. He

could not do much to lighten their lot materially, for his office was

that of superintending the engineering work, which had to be done in

ways and quantities, settled absolutely and unalterably by the

regulations. But if he happened to come across a gang of convicts who

had actually got through their work, he allowed them to go back to

quarters before beat of drum, without waiting for the regulation moment.

The prisoners loved him for the confidence he showed in them, and

because of his aversion for all mean, trifling interferences with them,

which are so irritating when prison superiors are addicted to that sort

of thing. I am absolutely certain that if he had lost a thousand roubles

in notes, there was not a thief in the prison, however hardened, who

would not have brought them to him, if the man lit on them. I am sure of

it.

How the prisoners all felt for him, and with him when they learned that

he was at daggers drawn with our detested Major. That came about a

month after his arrival. Their delight knew no bounds. The Major had

formerly served with him in the same detachment; so, when they met,

after a long separation, they were at first boon companions, but the

intimacy could not and did not last. They came to

blows--figuratively--and G--kof became the Major’s sworn enemy. Some

would have it that it was _more_ than figuratively, that they came to

actual fisticuffs, a likely thing enough as far as the Major was

concerned, for the man had no objection to a scrimmage.

When the convicts heard of the quarrel they really could not contain

their delight.

“Old Eight-eyes and the Commandant get on finely together! _He’s_ an

eagle; but the other’s a _bad ’un_!”

Those who believed in the fight were mighty curious to know which of the

two had had the worst of it, and got a good drubbing. If it had been

proved there had been no fighting our convicts, I think, would have been

bitterly disappointed.

“The Commandant gave him fits, you may bet your life on it,” said they;

“he’s a little ’un, but as bold as a lion; the other one got into a blue

funk, and hid under the bed from him.”

But G--kof went away only too soon, and keenly was he regretted in the

prison.

Our engineers were all most excellent fellows; we had three or four

fresh batches of them while I was there.

“Our eagles never remain very long with us,” said the prisoners;

“especially when they are good and kind fellows.”

It was this G--kof who sent B--ski and myself to work in his bureau, for

he was partial to exiled nobles. When he left, our condition was still

fairly endurable, for there was another engineer there who showed us

much sympathy and friendship. We copied reports for some time, and our

handwriting was getting to be very good, when an order came from the

authorities that we were to be sent back to hard labour as before; some

spiteful person had been at work. At bottom we were rather pleased, for

we were quite tired of copying.

For two whole years I worked in company with B--ski, all the time in the

shops, and many a gossip did we have about our hopes for the future and

our notions and convictions. Good B--ski had a very odd mind, which

worked in a strange, exceptional way. There are some people of great

intelligence who indulge in paradox unconscionably; but when they have

undergone great and constant sufferings for their ideas and made great

sacrifices for them, you can’t drive their notions out of their heads,

and it is cruel to try it. When you objected something to B--ski’s

propositions, he was really hurt, and gave you a violent answer. He was,

perhaps, more in the right than I was as to some things wherein we

differed, but we were obliged to give one another up, very much to my

regret, for we had many thoughts in common.

As years went on M--tski became more and more sombre and melancholy; he

became a prey to despair. During the earliest part of my imprisonment he

was communicative enough, and let us see what was going on in him. When

I arrived at the prison he had just finished his second year. At first

he took a lively interest in the news I brought, for he knew nothing of

what had been going on in the outer world; he put questions to me,

listened eagerly, showed emotion, but, bit by bit, his reserve grew on

him and there was no getting at his thoughts. The glowing coals were all

covered up with ashes. Yet it was plain that his temper grew sourer and

sourer. “_Je hais ces brigands_,”[10] he would say, speaking of convicts

I had got to know something of; I never could make him see any good in

them. He really did not seem to fully enter into the meaning of anything

I said on their behalf, though he would sometimes seem to agree in a

listless sort of way. Next day it was just as before: “_je hais ces

brigands_.” (We used often to speak French with him; so one of the

overseers of the works, the soldier, Dranichnikof, used always to call

us _aides chirurgiens_, God knows why!) M--tski never seemed to shake

off his usual apathy except when he spoke of his mother.

“She is old and infirm,” he said; “she loves me better than anything in

the world, and I don’t even know if she’s still living. If she learns

that I’ve been whipped----”

M--tski was not a noble, and had been whipped before he was transported.

When the recollection of this came up in his mind he gnashed his teeth,

and could not look anybody in the face. In the latest days of his

imprisonment he used to walk to and fro, quite alone for the most part.

One day, at noon, he was summoned to the Governor, who received him with

a smile on his lips.

“Well, M--tski, what were your dreams last night?” asked the Governor.

Said M--tski to me later, “When he said that to me a shudder ran through

me; I felt struck at the heart.”

His answer was, “I dreamed that I had a letter from my mother.”

“Better than that, better!” replied the Governor. “You are free; your

mother has petitioned the Emperor, and he has granted her prayer. Here,

here’s her letter, and the order for your dismissal. You are to leave

the jail without delay.”

He came to us pale, scarcely able to believe in his good fortune.

We congratulated him. He pressed our hands with his own, which were

quite cold, and trembled violently. Many of the convicts wished him joy;

they were really glad to see his happiness.

He settled in Siberia, establishing himself in our town, where a little

after that they gave him a place. He used often to come to the jail to

bring us news, and tell us all that was going on, as often as he could

talk with us. It was political news that interested him chiefly.

Besides the four Poles, the political convicts of whom I spoke just now,

there were two others of that nation, who were sentenced for very short

periods; they had not much education, but were good, simple,

straightforward fellows. There was another, A--tchoukooski, quite a

colourless person; one more I must mention, B--in, a man well on in

years, who impressed us all very unfavourably indeed. I don’t know what

he had been sentenced for, although he used to tell us some story or

other about it pretty frequently. He was a person of a vulgar, mean

type, with the coarse manner of an enriched shopkeeper. He was quite

without education, and seemed to take interest in nothing except what

concerned his trade, which was that of a painter, a sort of

scene-painter he was; he showed a good deal of talent in his work, and

the authorities of the prison soon came to know about his abilities, so

he got employment all through the town in decorating walls and ceilings.

In two years he beautified the rooms of nearly all the prison officials,

who remunerated him handsomely, so he lived pretty comfortably. He was

sent to work with three other prisoners, two of whom learned the

business thoroughly; one of these, T--jwoski, painted nearly as well as

B--in himself. Our Major, who had rooms in one of the government

buildings, sent for B--in, and gave him a commission to decorate the

walls and ceilings there, which he did so effectively, that the suite of

rooms of the Governor-General were quite put out of countenance by those

of the Major. The house itself was a ramshackle old place, while the

interior, thanks to B--in, was as gay as a palace. Our worthy Major was

hugely delighted, went about rubbing his hands, and told everybody that

he should look out for a wife at once, “a fellow _can’t_ remain single

when he lives in a place like that;” he was quite serious about it. The

Major’s satisfaction with B--in and his assistants went on increasing.

They occupied a month in the work at the Major’s house. During those

memorable days the Major seemed to get into a different frame of mind

about us, and began to be quite kind to us political prisoners. One day

he sent for J--ski.

“J--ski,” said he, “I’ve done you wrong; I had you beaten for nothing.

I’m very sorry. Do you understand? I’m very sorry. I, Major ----”

J--ski answered that he understood perfectly.

“Do you understand? I, who am set over you, I have sent for you to ask

your pardon. You can hardly realise it, I suppose. What are you to me,

fellow? A worm, less than a crawling worm; you’re a convict, while I, by

God’s grace,[11] am a Major; Major ----, _do_ you understand?”

J--ski answered that he quite well understood it all.

“Well, I want to be friends with you. But can you appreciate what I’m

doing? Can you feel the greatness of soul I’m showing--feel and

appreciate it? Just think of it; I, I, the Major!” etc. etc.

J--ski told me of this scene. There was, then, some human feeling left

in this drunken, unruly, and tormenting brute. Allowing for the man’s

notions of things, and feeble faculties, one cannot deny that this was a

generous proceeding on his part. Perhaps he was a little less drunk than

usual, perhaps more; who can tell?

The Major’s glorious idea of marrying came to nothing; the rooms got all

their bravery, but the wife was not forthcoming. Instead of going to the

altar in that agreeable way, he was pulled up before the authorities and

sent to trial. He received orders to send in his resignation. Some of

his old sins had found him out, it seems; things done when he had been

superintendent of police in our town. This crushing blow came down upon

him without notice, quite suddenly. All the convicts were greatly

rejoiced when they heard the great news; it was high day and holiday all

through the jail. The story went abroad that the Major sobbed, and

cried, and howled like an old woman. But he was helpless in the matter.

He was obliged to leave his place, sell his two gray horses, and

everything he had in the world; and he fell into complete destitution.

We came across him occasionally afterwards in civilian, threadbare

clothes, and wearing a cap with a cockade; he glanced at us convicts as

spitefully and maliciously as you please. But without his Major’s

uniform, all the man’s glory was gone. While placed over us, he gave

himself the airs of a being higher than human, who had got into coat and

breeches; now it was all over, he looked like the lackey he was, and a

disgraced lackey to boot.

With fellows of this sort, the uniform is the only saving grace; that

gone, all’s gone.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] The Decembrists.

[10] French in the original Russian.

[11] Our Major was not the only officer who spoke of himself in that

lofty way; a good many officers did the same, men who had risen from the

ranks chiefly.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ESCAPE

A little while after the Major resigned, our prison was subjected to a

thorough reorganization. The “hard labour” hitherto inflicted, and the

other regulations, were abolished, and the place put upon the footing of

the military convict establishments of Russia. As a result of this,

prisoners of the second category were no longer sent there; this class

was, for the future, to be composed of prisoners who were regarded as

still on the military footing, that is to say, men who, in spite of

sentence, did not forfeit for ever their civic _status_. They were

soldiers still, but had undergone corporal punishment; they were

sentenced for comparatively short periods, six years at most; when they

had served their time, or in case of pardon, they went into the ranks

again, as before. Men guilty of a second offence were sentenced to

twenty years of imprisonment. Up to the time I speak of, we had a

section of soldier-prisoners among us, but only because they did not

know where else to dispose of them. Now the place was to be occupied by

soldiers exclusively. As to the civilian convicts, who were stripped of

all civic rights, branded, cropped, and shaven, these were to remain in

the fortress to finish their time; but as no fresh prisoners of this

class were to come in, and those there would get their discharge

successively, at the end of ten years there would be no civilian

convicts left in the place, according to the arrangements. The line of

division between the classes of prisoners there was maintained; from

time to time there came in other military criminals of high position,

sent to our place for security, before being forwarded to Eastern

Siberia, for the more aggravated penalties that awaited them there.

There was no change in our general way of life. The work we had to do

and the discipline observed were the same as before; but the

administrative system was entirely altered, and made more complex. An

officer, commandant of companies, was assigned to be at the head of the

prison; he had under his orders four subaltern officers who mounted

guard by turns. The “invalids” were superseded by twelve

non-commissioned officers, and an arsenal superintendent. The convicts

were divided into sections of ten, and corporals chosen among them; the

power of these over the others was, as may be supposed, nominal. As

might be expected, Akim Akimitch got this promotion.

All these new arrangements were confided to the Governor to carry out,

who remained in superior command over the whole establishment. The

changes did not go further than this. At first the convicts were not a

little excited by this movement, and discussed their new guardians a

good deal among themselves, trying to make out what sort of fellows they

were; but when they saw that everything went on pretty much as usual

they quieted down, and things resumed their ordinary course. We had got

rid of the Major, and that was something; everybody took fresh breath

and fresh courage. The fear that was in all hearts grew less; we had

some assurance that in case of need we could go to our superiors and

lodge our complaint, and that a man could not be punished without cause,

and would not, unless by mistake.

Brandy was brought in as before, although we had subaltern officers now

where “invalids” were before. These subalterns were all worthy, careful

men, who knew their place and business. There were some among them who

had the idea that they might give themselves grand airs, and treat us

like common soldiers, but they soon gave it up and behaved like the

others. Those who did not seem to be well able to get into their heads

what the ways of our prison really were, had sharp lessons about it from

the convicts themselves, which led to some lively scenes. One

sub-officer was confronted with brandy, which was of course too much for

him; when he was sober again we had a little explanation with him; we

pointed out that he had been drinking with the prisoners, and that,

accordingly, etc. etc.; he became quite tractable. The end of it was

that the subalterns closed their eyes to the brandy business. They went

to market for us, just as the invalids used to, and brought the

prisoners white bread, meat, anything that could be got in without too

much risk. So I never could understand why they had gone to the trouble

of turning the place into a military prison. The change was made two

years before I left the place; I had two years to bear of it still.

I see little use in recording all I saw and went through later at the

convict establishment day by day. If I were to tell it all, all the

daily and hourly occurrences, I might write twice or thrice as many

chapters as this book ought to contain, but I should simply tire the

reader and myself. Substantially all that I might write has been already

embodied in the narrative as it stands so far; and the reader has had

the opportunity of getting a tolerable idea of what the life of a

convict of the second class really was. My wish has been to portray the

state of things at the establishment, and as it affected myself,

accurately and yet forcibly; whether I have done so others must judge. I

cannot pronounce upon my own work, but I think I may well draw it to a

close; as I move among these recollections of a dreadful past, the old

suffering comes up again and all but strangles me.

Besides, I cannot be sure of my memory as to all I saw in these last

years, for the faculty seems blunted as regards the later compared with

the earlier period of my imprisonment, there is a good deal I am sure I

have quite forgotten. But I remember only too well how very, very slow

these last two years were, how very sad, how the days seemed as if they

never would come to evening, something like water falling drop by drop.

I remember, too, that I was filled with a mighty longing for my

resurrection from that grave which gave me strength to bear up, to wait,

and to hope. And so I got to be hardened and enduring; I lived on

expectation, I counted every passing day; if there were a thousand more

of them to pass at the prison I found satisfaction in thinking that one

of them was gone, and only nine hundred and ninety-nine to come. I

remember, too, that though I had round me a hundred persons in like

case, I felt myself more and more solitary, and though the solitude was

awful I came to love it. Isolated thus among the convict-crowd I went

over all my earlier life, analysing its events and thoughts minutely; I

passed my former doings in review, and sometimes was pitiless in

condemnation of myself; sometimes I went so far as to be grateful to

fate for the privilege of such loneliness, for only that could have

caused me so severely to scrutinise my past, so searchingly to examine

its inner and outer life. What strong and strange new germs of hope came

in those memorable hours up in my soul! I weighed and decided all sorts

of issues, I entered into a compact with myself to avoid the errors of

former years, and the rocks on which I had been wrecked; I laid down a

programme for my future, and vowed that I would stick to it; I had a

sort of blind and complete conviction that, once away from that place, I

should be able to carry out everything I made my mind up to; I looked

for my freedom with transports of eager desire; I wanted to try my

strength in a renewed struggle with life; sometimes I was clutched, as

by fangs, by an impatience which rose to fever heat. It is painful to go

back to these things, most painful; nobody, I know, can care much about

it at all except myself; but I write because I think people will

understand, and because there are those who have been, those who yet

will be, like myself, condemned, imprisoned, cut off from life, in the

flower of their age, and in the full possession of all their strength.

But all this is useless. Let me end my memoirs with a narrative of

something interesting, for I must not close them too abruptly.

What shall it be? Well, it may occur to some to ask whether it was quite

impossible to escape from the jail, and if during the time I spent there

no attempt of the kind was made. I have already said that a prisoner who

has got through two or three years thinks a good deal of it, and, as a

rule, concludes that it is best to finish his time without running more

risks, so that he may get his settlement, on the land or otherwise, when

set at liberty. But those who reckon in this way are convicts sentenced

for comparatively short times; those who have many years to serve are

always ready to run some chances. For all that the attempts at escape

were quite infrequent. Whether that was attributable to the want of

spirit in the convicts, the severity of the military discipline

enforced, or, after all, to the situation of the town, little favourable

to escapes, for it was in the midst of the open steppe, I really cannot

say. All these motives no doubt contributed to give pause. It was

difficult enough to get out of the prison at all; in my time two

convicts tried it; they were criminals of importance.

When our Major had been got rid of, A--v, the spy, was quite alone with

nobody to back him up. He was still quite young, but his character grew

in force with every year; he was a bold, self-asserting fellow, of

considerable intelligence. I think if they had set him at liberty he

would have gone on spying and getting money in every sort of shameful

way, but I don’t think he would have let himself be caught again; he

would have turned his experiences as a convict to far too much good for

that. One trick he practised was that of forging passports, at least so

I heard from some of the convicts. I think this fellow was ready to risk

everything for a change in his position. Circumstances gave me the

opportunity of getting to the bottom of this man’s disposition and

seeing how ugly it was; he was simply revolting in his cold, deep

wickedness, and my disgust with him was more than I could get over. I do

believe that if he wanted a drink of brandy, and could only have got it

by killing some one, he would not have hesitated one moment if it was

pretty certain the crime would not come out. He had learned there, in

that jail, to look on everything in the coolest calculating way. It was

on him that the choice of Koulikoff--of the special section--fell, as we

are to see.

I have spoken before of Koulikoff. He was no longer young, but full of

ardour, life, and vigour, and endowed with extraordinary faculties. He

felt his strength, and wanted still to have a life of his own; there are

some men who long to live in a rich, abounding life, even when old age

has got hold of them. I should have been a good deal surprised if

Koulikoff had _not_ tried to escape; but he did. Which of the two,

Koulikoff and A--v, had the greater influence over the other I really

cannot say; they were a goodly couple, and suited each other to a hair,

so they soon became as thick as possible. I fancy that Koulikoff

reckoned on A--v to forge a passport for him; besides, the latter was of

the noble class, belonged to good society, a circumstance out of which a

good deal could be made if they managed to get back into Russia. Heaven

only knows what compacts they made, or what plans and hopes they formed;

if they got as far as Russia they would at all events leave behind them

Siberia and vagabondage. Koulikoff was a versatile man, capable of

playing many a part on the stage of life, and had plenty of ability to

go upon, whatever direction his efforts took. To such persons the jail

is strangulation and suffocation. So the two set about plotting their

escape.

But to get away without a soldier to act as escort was impossible; so a

soldier had to be won. In one of the battalions stationed at our

fortress was a Pole of middle life--an energetic fellow worthy of a

better fate--serious, courageous. When he arrived first in Siberia,

quite young, he had deserted, for he could not stand his sufferings from

nostalgia. He was captured and whipped. During two years he formed part

of the disciplinary companies to which offenders are sent; then he

rejoined his battalion, and, showing himself zealous in the service, had

been rewarded by promotion to the rank of corporal. He had a good deal

of self-love, and spoke like a man who had no small conceit of himself.

I took particular notice of the man sometimes when he was among the

soldiers who had charge of us, for the Poles had spoken to me about him;

and I got the idea that his longing for his native country had taken the

form of a chill, fixed, deadly hatred for those who kept him away from

it. He was the sort of man to stick at nothing, and Koulikoff showed

that his scent was good, when he pitched on this man to be an accomplice

in his flight. This corporal’s name was Kohler. Koulikoff and he settled

their plans and fixed the day. It was the month of June, the hottest of

the year. The climate of our town and neighbourhood was pretty equable,

especially in summer, which is a very good thing for tramps and

vagabonds. To make off far after leaving the fortress was quite out of

the question, it being situated on rising ground and in uncovered

country, for though surrounded by woods, these are a considerable

distance away. A disguise was indispensable, and to procure it they must

manage to get into the outskirts of the town, where Koulikoff had taken

care some time before to prepare a den of some sort. I don’t know

whether his worthy friends in that part of the town were in the secret.

It may be presumed they were, though there is no evidence. That year,

however, a young woman who led a gay life and was very pretty, settled

down in a nook of that same part of the city, near the county. This

young person attracted a good deal of notice, and her career promised to

be something quite remarkable; her nickname was “Fire and Flame.” I

think that she and the fugitives concerted the plans of escape together,

for Koulikoff had lavished a good deal of attention and money on her for

more than a year. When the gangs were formed each morning, the two

fellows, Koulikoff and A--v, managed to get themselves sent out with the

convict Chilkin, whose trade was that of stove-maker and plasterer, to

do up the empty barracks when the soldiers went into camp. A--v and

Koulikoff were to help in carrying the necessary materials. Kohler got

himself put into the escort on the occasion; as the rules required three

soldiers to act as escort for two prisoners, they gave him a young

recruit whom he was doing corporal’s duty upon, drilling and training

him. Our fugitives must have exercised a great deal of influence over

Kohler to deceive him, to cast his lot in with them, serious,

intelligent, and reflective man as he was, with so few more years of

service to pass in the army.

They arrived at the barracks about six o’clock in the morning; there was

nobody with them. After having worked about an hour, Koulikoff and A--v

told Chilkin that they were going to the workshop to see some one, and

fetch a tool they wanted. They had to go carefully to work with Chilkin,

and speak in as natural a tone as they could. The man was from Moscow,

by trade a stove-maker, sharp and cunning, keen-sighted, not talkative,

fragile in appearance, with little flesh on his bones. He was the sort

of person who might have been expected to pass his life in honest

working dress, in some Moscow shop, yet here he was in the “special

section,” after many wanderings and transfers among the most formidable

military criminals; so fate had ordered.

What had he done to deserve such severe punishment? I had not the least

idea; he never showed the least resentment or sour feeling, and went on

in a quiet, inoffensive way; now and then he got as drunk as a lord;

but, apart from that, his conduct was perfectly good. Of course he was

not in the secret, so he had to be thrown off the scent. Koulikoff told

him, with a wink, that they were going to get some brandy, which had

been hidden the day before in the workshop, which suited Chilkin’s book

perfectly; he had not the least notion of what was up, and remained

alone with the young recruit, while Koulikoff, A--v, and Kohler betook

themselves to the suburbs of the town.

Half-an-hour passed; the men did not come back. Chilkin began to think,

and the truth dawned upon him. He remembered that Koulikoff had not

seemed at all like himself, that he had seen him whispering and winking

to A--v; he was sure of that, and the whole thing seemed suspicious to

him. Kohler’s behaviour had struck him, too; when he went off with the

two convicts, the corporal had given the recruit orders what he was to

do in his absence, which he had never known him do before. The more

Chilkin thought over the matter the less he liked it. Time went on; the

convicts did not return; his anxiety was great; for he saw that the

authorities would suspect him of connivance with the fugitives, so that

his own skin was in danger. If he made any delay in giving information

of what had occurred, suspicion of himself would grow into conviction

that he knew what the men intended when they left him, and he would be

dealt with as their accomplice. There was no time to lose.

It came into his mind, then, that Koulikoff and A--v had become

markedly intimate for some time, and that they had been often seen

laying their heads together behind the barracks, by themselves. He

remembered, too, that he had more than once fancied that they were up to

something together.

He looked attentively at the soldier with him as escort; the fellow was

yawning, leaning on his gun, and scratching his nose in the most

innocent manner imaginable; so Chilkin did not think it necessary to

speak of his anxieties to this man: he told him simply to come with him

to the engineers’ workshops. His object was to ask if anybody there had

seen his companions; but nobody there had, so Chilkin’s suspicions grew

stronger and stronger. If only he could think that they had gone to get

drunk and have a spree in the outskirts of the town, as Koulikoff often

did. No, thought Chilkin, that was _not_ so. They would have told him,

for there was no need to make a mystery of that. Chilkin left his work,

and went straight back to the jail.

It was about nine o’clock when he reached the sergeant-major, to whom he

mentioned his suspicions. That officer was frightened, and at first

could not believe there was anything in it all. Chilkin had, in fact,

expressed no more than a vague misgiving that all was not as it should

be. The sergeant-major ran to the Major, who in his turn ran to the

Governor. In a quarter-of-an-hour all necessary measures were taken. The

Governor-General was communicated with. As the convicts in question were

persons of importance, it might be expected that the matter would be

seriously viewed at St. Petersburg. A--v was classed among political

prisoners, by a somewhat random official proceeding, it would seem;

Koulikoff was a convict of the “special section,” that is to say, as a

criminal of the blackest dye, and, what was worse, was an ex-soldier. It

was then brought to notice that according to the regulations each

convict of the “special section” ought to have two soldiers assigned as

escort when he went to work; the regulations had not been observed as

to this, so that everybody was exposed to serious trouble. Expresses

were sent off to all the district offices of the municipality, and all

the little neighbouring towns, to warn the authorities of the escape of

the two convicts, and a full description furnished of their persons.

Cossacks were sent out to hunt them up, letters sent to the authorities

of all adjoining Governmental districts. And everybody was frightened to

death.

The excitement was quite as great all through the prison; as the

convicts returned from work, they heard the tremendous news, which

spread rapidly from man to man; all received it with deep, though secret

satisfaction. Their emotion was as natural as it was great. The affair

broke the monotony of their lives, and gave them something to think of;

but, above all, it was an escape, and as such, something to sympathise

with deeply, and stirred fibres in the poor fellows which had long been

without any exciting stimulus; something like hope and a disposition to

confront their fate set their hearts beating, for the incident seemed to

show that their hard lot was not hopelessly unchangeable.

“Well, you see they’ve got off in spite of them! Why shouldn’t we?”

The thought came into every man’s mind, and made him stiffen his back

and look at his neighbours in a defiant sort of way. All the convicts

seemed to grow an inch taller on the strength of it, and to look down a

bit upon the sub-officers. The heads of the place soon came running up,

as you may imagine. The Governor now arrived in person. We fellows

looked at them all with some assurance, with a touch of contempt, and

with a very set expression of face, as though to say: “Well, you there?

We can get out of your clutches when we’ve a mind to.”

All the men were quite sure there would be a general searching of

everything and everybody; so everything that was at all contraband was

carefully hidden; for the authorities would want to show that precious

wisdom of theirs which may be reckoned on after the event. The

expectation was verified; there was a mighty turning of everything

upside down and topsy-turvy, a general rummage, with the discovery of

exactly nothing, as they might have known.

When the time came for going out to work after dinner the usual escorts

were doubled. When night came, the officers and sub-officers on service

came pouncing on us at every moment to see if we were off our guard, and

if anything could be got out of us; the lists were gone over once more

than the usual number of times, which extra mustering only gave more

trouble for nothing; we were hunted out of the court-yard that our names

might be gone through again. Then, when in barrack, they reckoned us up

another time, as if they never could be done with the exercise.

The convicts were not at all disturbed by all this bustling absurdity.

They put on a very unconcerned demeanour, and, as is always the case in

such a conjuncture, behaved in the prettiest manner all that evening and

night. “We won’t give them any handle anyhow,” was the general feeling.

The question with the authorities was whether some among us were not in

complicity with those who had got away, so a careful watch was kept over

our doings, and a careful ear for our conversations; but nothing came of

it.

“Not such fools, those fellows, as to leave anybody behind who was in

the secret!”

“When you go at that sort of thing you lie low and play low!”

“Koulikoff and A--v know enough to have covered up their tracks. They’ve

done the trick in first-rate style, keeping things to themselves;

they’ve mizzled, the rascals; clever chaps, those, they could get

through shut doors!”

The glory of Koulikoff and A--v had grown a hundred cubits higher than

it was. Everybody was proud of them. Their exploit, it was felt, would

be handed down to the most distant posterity, and outlive the jail

itself.

“Rattling fellows, those!” said one.

“Can’t get away from here, eh? _That’s_ their notion, is it? Just look

at those chaps!”

“Yes,” said a third, looking very superior, “but who _is_ it that has

got away? Tip-top fellows. _You_ can’t hold a candle to them.”

At any other time the man to whom anything of that sort was said would

have replied angrily enough, and defended himself; now the observation

was met with modest silence.

“True enough,” was said. “Everybody’s not a Koulikoff or an A--v, you’ve

got to show what you’re made of before you’ve a right to speak.”

“I say, pals, after all, why do we remain in the place?” struck in a

prisoner seated by the kitchen window; he spoke drawlingly, but the man,

you could see, enjoyed it all; he slowly rubbed his cheek with the palm

of his hand. “Why do we stop? It’s no life at all, we’ve been buried,

though we’re alive and kicking. Now _isn’t_ it so?”

“Oh, curse it, you can’t get out of prison as easy as shaking off an old

boot. I tell you it sticks to your calves. What’s the good of pulling a

long face over it?”

“But, look here; there is Koulikoff now,” began one of the most eager, a

mere lad.

“Koulikoff!” exclaimed another, looking askance at the young fellow.

“Koulikoff! They don’t turn out Koulikoffs by the dozen.”

“And A--v, pals, there’s a lad for you!”

“Aye, aye, he’ll get Koulikoff just where he wants him, as often as he

wants him. He’s up to everything, he is.”

“I wonder how far they’ve got; that’s what _I_ want to know,” said one.

Then the talk went off into details: Had they got far from the town?

What direction did they go off in? _Which_ gave them the best chance?

Then they discussed distances, and as there were convicts who knew the

neighbourhood well, these were attentively listened to.

Next, they talked over the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, of

whom they seemed to think as badly as possible. There was nobody in the

neighbourhood, the convicts believed, who would hesitate at all as to

the course to be pursued; nothing would induce them to help the

runaways; quite the other way, these people would hunt them down.

“If you only knew what bad fellows these peasants are! Rascally brutes!”

“Peasants, indeed! Worthless scamps!”

“These Siberians are as bad as bad can be. They think nothing of killing

a man.”

“Oh, well, our fellows----”

“Yes, that’s it, they may come off second best. Our fellows are as

plucky as plucky can be.”

“Well, if we live long enough, we shall hear something about them soon.”

“Well, now, what do you _think_? Do you think they really will get clean

away?”

“I am sure, as I live, that they’ll never be caught,” said one of the

most excited, giving the table a great blow with his fist.

“Hm! That’s as things turn out.”

“I’ll tell you what, friends,” said Skouratof, “if I once got out, I’d

stake my life they’d never get me again.”

“_You?_”

Everybody burst out laughing. They would hardly condescend to listen to

him; but Skouratof was not to be put down.

“I tell you I’d stake my life on it!” with great energy. “Why, I made my

mind up to _that_ long ago. I’d find means of going through a key-hole

rather than let them lay hands on me.”

“Oh, don’t you fear, when your belly got empty you’d just go creeping

to a peasant and ask him for a morsel of something.”

Fresh laughter.

“I ask him for victuals? You’re a liar!”

“Hold your jaw, can’t you? We know what you were sent here for. You and

your Uncle Vacia killed some peasant for bewitching your cattle.”[12]

More laughter. The more serious among them seemed very angry and

indignant.

“You’re a liar,” cried Skouratof; “it’s Mikitka who told you that; I

wasn’t in that at all, it was Uncle Vacia; don’t you mix my name up in

it. I’m a Moscow man, and I’ve been on the tramp ever since I was a very

small thing. Look here, when the priest taught me to read the liturgy,

he used to pinch my ears, and say, ‘Repeat this after me: Have pity on

me, Lord, out of Thy great goodness;’ and he used to make me say with

him, ‘They’ve taken me up and brought me to the police-station out of

Thy great goodness,’ and the like. I tell you that went on when I was

quite a little fellow.”

All laughed heartily again; that was what Skouratof wanted; he liked

playing clown. Soon the talk became serious again, especially among the

older men and those who knew a good deal about escapes. Those among the

younger convicts who could keep themselves quiet enough to listen,

seemed highly delighted. A great crowd was assembled in and about the

kitchen. There were none of the warders about; so everybody could give

vent to his feelings in talk or otherwise. One man I noticed who was

particularly enjoying himself, a Tartar, a little fellow with high

cheek-bones, and a remarkably droll face. His name was Mametka, he could

scarcely speak Russian at all, but it was odd to see the way he craned

his neck forward into the crowd, and the childish delight he showed.

“Well, Mametka, my lad, _iakchi_.”

“_Iakchi, ouk, iakchi!_” said Mametka as well as he could, shaking his

grotesque head. “_Iakchi._”

“They’ll never catch them, eh? _Iok._”

“_Iok, iok!_” and Mametka waggled his head and threw his arms about.

“You’re a liar, then, and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Hey!”

“That’s it, that’s it, _iakchi_!” answered poor Mametka.

“All right, good, _iakchi_ it is!”

Skouratof gave him a thump on the head, which sent his cap down over his

eyes, and went out in high glee, and Mametka was quite chapfallen.

For a week or so a very tight hand was kept on everybody in the jail,

and the whole neighbourhood was repeatedly and carefully searched. How

they managed it I cannot tell, but the prisoners always seemed to know

all about the measures taken by the authorities for recovering the

runaways. For some days, according to all we heard, things went very

favourably for them; no traces whatever of them could be found. Our

convicts made very light of all the authorities were about, and were

quite at their ease about their friends, and kept saying that nothing

would ever be found out about them.

All the peasants round about were roused, we were told, and watching all

the likely places, woods, ravines, etc.

“Stuff and nonsense!” said our fellows, who had a grin on their faces

most of the time, “they’re hidden at somebody’s place who’s a friend.”

“That’s certain; they’re not the fellows to chance things, they’ve made

all sure.”

The general idea was, in fact, that they were still concealed in the

suburbs of the town, in a cellar, waiting till the hue and cry was over,

and for their hair to grow; that they would remain there perhaps six

months at least, and then quietly go off. All the prisoners were in the

most fanciful and romantic state of mind about the things. Suddenly,

eight days after the escape, a rumour spread that the authorities were

on their track. This rumour was at first treated with contempt, but

towards evening there seemed to be more in it. The convicts became much

excited. Next morning it was said in the town that the runaways had been

caught, and were being brought back. After dinner there were further

details; the story was that they had been seized at a hamlet, seventy

versts away from the town. At last we had fully confirmed tidings. The

sergeant-major positively asserted, immediately after an interview with

the Major, that they would be brought into the guard-house that very

night. They were taken; there could be no doubt of it.

It is difficult to convey an adequate idea of the way the convicts were

affected by the news. At first their rage was great, then they were

deeply dejected. Then they began to be bitter and sarcastic, pouring all

their scorn, not on the authorities, but on the runaways who had been

such fools as to get caught. A few began this, then nearly all joined,

except a small number of the more serious, thoughtful ones, who held

their tongues, and seemed to regard the thoughtless fellows with great

contempt.

Poor Koulikoff and A--v were now just as heartily abused as they had

been glorified before; the men seemed to take a delight in running them

down, as though in being caught they had done something wantonly

offensive to their mates. It was said, with high contempt, that the

fellows had probably got hungry and couldn’t stand it, and had gone into

a village to ask bread of the peasants, which, according to tramp

etiquette, it appears, is to come down very low in the world indeed. In

this supposition the men turned out to be quite mistaken; for what had

happened was that the tracks of the runaways out of the town were

discovered and followed up; they were ascertained to have got into a

wood, which was surrounded, so that the fugitives had no recourse but

to give themselves up.

They were brought in that night, tied hands and feet, under armed

escort. All the convicts ran hastily to the palisades to see what would

be done with them; but they saw nothing except the carriages of the

Governor and the Major, which were waiting in front of the guard-house.

The fugitives were ironed and locked up separately, their punishment

being adjourned till the next day. The prisoners began all to sympathise

with the unhappy fellows when they heard how they had been taken, and

learned that they could not help themselves, and the anxiety about the

issue was keen.

“They’ll get a thousand at least.”

“A thousand, is it? I tell you they’ll have it till the life is beaten

out of them. A--v may get off with a thousand, but the other they’ll

kill; why, he’s in the ‘special section.’”

They were wrong. A--v was sentenced to five hundred strokes, his

previous good conduct told in his favour, and this was his first prison

offence. Koulikoff, I believe, had fifteen hundred. The punishment, upon

the whole, was mild rather than severe.

The two men showed good sense and feeling, for they gave nobody’s name

as having helped them, and positively declared that they had made

straight for the woods without going into anybody’s house. I was very

sorry for Koulikoff; to say nothing of the heavy beating he got; he had

thrown away all his chances of having his lot as a prisoner lightened.

Later he was sent to another convict establishment. A--v did not get all

he was sentenced to; the physicians interfered, and he was let off. But

as soon as he was safe in the hospital he began blowing his trumpet

again, and said he would stick at nothing now, and that they should soon

see what he would do. Koulikoff was not changed a bit, as decorous as

ever, and gave himself just the same airs as ever; manner or words to

show that he had had such an adventure. But the convicts looked on him

quite differently; he seemed to have come down a good deal in their

estimation, and now to be on their own level every way, instead of being

a superior creature. So it was that poor Koulikoff’s star paled; success

is everything in this world.

FOOTNOTE:

[12] The expression of the original is untranslatable; literally “you

killed a cattle-kill.” This phrase means murder of a peasant, male or

female, supposed to bewitch cattle. We had in our jail a murderer who

had done this cattle-kill.--DOSTOÏEFFSKY’S NOTE.

CHAPTER X.

FREEDOM!

This incident occurred during my last year of imprisonment. My

recollection of what occurred this last year is as keen as of the events

of the first years; but I have gone into detail enough. In spite of my

impatience to be out, this year was the least trying of all the years I

spent there. I had now many friends and acquaintances among the

convicts, who had by this time made up their minds very much in my

favour. Many of them, indeed, had come to feel a sincere and genuine

affection for me. The soldier who was assigned to accompany my friend

and myself--simultaneously discharged--out of the prison, very nearly

cried when the time for leaving came. And when we were at last in full

freedom, staying in the rooms of the Government building placed at our

disposal for the month we still spent in the town, this man came nearly

every day to see us. But there were some men whom I could never soften

or win any regard from--God knows why--and who showed just the same hard

aversion for me at the last as at the first; something we could not get

over stood between us.

I had more indulgences during the last year. I found among the military

functionaries of our town old acquaintances, and even some old

schoolfellows, and the renewal of these relations helped me. Thanks to

them I got permission to have some money, to write to my family, and

even to have some books. For some years I had not had a single volume,

and words would fail to tell the strange, deep emotion and excitement

which the first book I read at the jail caused me. I began to devour it

at night, when the doors were closed, and read it till the break of day.

It was a number of a review, and it seemed to me like a messenger from

the other world. As I read, my life before the prison days seemed to

rise up before me in sharp definition, as of some existence independent

of my own, which another soul had had. Then I tried to get some clear

idea of my relation to current events and things; whether my arrears of

knowledge and experience were too great to make up; whether the men and

women out of doors had lived and gone through many things and great

during the time I was away from them; and great was my desire to

thoroughly understand what was _now_ going on, _now_ that I could know

something about it all at last. All the words I read were as palpable

things, which I wanted rather to feel sensibly than get mere meaning out

of; I tried to see more in the text than _could_ be there. I imagined

some mysterious meanings that _must_ be in them, and tried at every page

to see allusions to the past, with which my mind was familiar, whether

they were there or not; at every turn of the leaf I sought for traces of

what had deeply moved people before the days of my bondage; and deep was

my dejection when it was forced on my mind that a new state of things

had arisen; a new life, among my kind, which was alien to my knowledge

and my sentiments. I felt as if I was a straggler, left behind and lost

in the onward march of mankind.

Yes, there were indeed arrears, if the word is not too weak.

For the truth is, that another generation had come up, and I knew it

not, and it knew not me. At the foot of one article I saw the name of

one who had been dear to me; with what avidity I flung myself on _that_

paper! But the other names were nearly all new to me; new workers had

come upon the scene, and I was eager to know their doings and

themselves. It made me feel nearly desperate to have so few books, and

to know how hard it would be to get more. At an earlier date, in the old

Major’s time, it was a dangerous thing indeed to bring books into the

jail. If one was found when the whole place was searched, as was

regularly done, great was the disturbance, and no efforts were spared to

find out how they got in, and who had helped in the offence. I did not

want to be subjected to insulting scrutiny, and, if I had, it would have

been useless. I _had_ to live without books, and did, shut up in myself,

tormenting myself with many a question and problem on which I had no

means of throwing any light. But I can _never_ tell it all.

It was in winter that I came in, so in winter I was to leave, on the

anniversary-day. Oh, with what impatience did I look forward to the

thrice-blessed winter! How gladly did I see the summer die out, the

leaves turn yellow on the trees, the grass turn dry over the wide

steppe! Summer is gone at last! the winds of autumn howl and groan, the

first snow falls in whirling flakes. The winter, so long, long-prayed

for, is come, come at last. Oh, how the heart beats with the thought

that freedom was really, at last, at last, close at hand. Yet it was

strange, as the time of times, the day of days, grew nearer and nearer,

so did my soul grow quieter and quieter. I was annoyed at myself,

reproached myself even with being cold, indifferent. Many of the

convicts, as I met them in the court-yard when the day’s work was done,

used to get out, and talk with me to wish me joy.

“Ah, little Father Alexander Petrovitch, you’ll soon be out now! And

here you’ll leave us poor devils behind!”

“Well, Mertynof, have you long to wait still?” I asked the man who

spoke.

“I! Oh, good Lord, I’ve seven years of it yet to weary through.”

Then the man sighed with a far-away, wandering look, as if he was gazing

into those intolerable days to come.... Yes, many of my companions

congratulated me in a way that showed they really felt what they said. I

saw, too, that there was more disposition to meet me as man to man, they

drew nearer to me as I was to leave them; the halo of freedom began to

surround me, and caring for that they cared more for me. It was in this

spirit they bade me farewell.

K--schniski, a young Polish noble, a sweet and amiable person, was very

fond, about this time, of walking in the court-yard with me. The

stifling nights in the barracks did him much harm, so he tried his best

to keep his health by getting all the exercise and fresh air he could.

“I am looking forward impatiently to the day when _you_ will be set

free,” he said with a smile one day, “for when you go I shall _realise_

that I have just one year more of it to undergo.”

Need I say what I can yet not help saying, that freedom in idea always

seemed to us who were there something _more_ free than it ever can be in

reality? That was because our fancy was always dwelling upon it.

Prisoners always exaggerate when they think of freedom and look on a

free man; we did certainly; the poorest servant of one of the officers

there seemed a sort of king to us, everything we could imagine in a free

man, compared with ourselves at least; he had no irons on his limbs, his

head was not shaven, he could go where and when he liked, with no

soldiers to watch and escort him.

The day before I was set free, as night fell I went _for the last time_

all through and all round the prison. How many a thousand times had I

made the circuit of those palisades during those ten years! There, at

the rear of the barracks, had I gone to and fro during the whole of that

first year, a solitary, despairing man. I remember how I used to reckon

up the days I had still to pass there--thousands, thousands! God! how

long ago it seemed. There’s the corner where the poor prisoned eagle

wasted away; Petroff used often to come to me at that place. It seemed

as if the man would never leave my side now; he would place himself by

my side and walk along without ever saying a word, as though he knew all

my thoughts as well as myself, and there was always a strange,

inexplicable sort of wondering look on the man’s face.

How many a mental farewell did I take of the black, squared beams in our

barracks! Ah, me! How much joyless youth, how much strength for which

use there was none, was buried, lost in those walls!--youth and strength

of which the world might surely have made _some_ use. For I must speak

my thoughts as to this: the hapless fellows there were perhaps the

strongest, and, in one way or another, the most gifted of our people.

There was all that strength of body and of mind lost, hopelessly lost.

Whose fault is that?

Yes; whose fault _is_ that?

The next day, at an early hour, before the men were mustered for work, I

went through all the barracks to bid the men a last farewell. Many a

vigorous, horny hand was held out to me with right good-will. Some

grasped and shook my hand as though all their hearts went with the act;

but these were the more generous souls. Most of the poor fellows seemed

so much to feel that, for them, I was already a man changed by what was

coming, that they could feel scarce anything else. They knew that I had

friends in the town, that I was going away at once to _gentlemen_, that

I should sit at their table as their equal. This the poor fellows felt;

and, although they did their best as they took my hand, that hand could

not be the hand of an equal. No; I, too, was a gentleman now. Some

turned their backs on me, and made no reply to my parting words. I

think, too, that I saw looks of aversion on some faces.

The drum beat; all the convicts went to their work; and I was left to

myself. Souchiloff had got up before everybody that morning, and now set

himself tremblingly to the task of getting ready for me a last cup of

tea. Poor Souchiloff! How he cried when I gave him my clothes, my

shirts, my trouser-straps, and some money.

“’Tain’t that, ’tain’t that,” he said, and he bit his trembling lips,

“it’s that I am going to lose you, Alexander Petrovitch! What _shall_ I

do without you?”

There was Akim Akimitch, too; him, also, I bade farewell.

“Your turn to go will come soon, I pray,” said I.

“Ah, no! I shall remain here long, long, very long yet,” he just managed

to say, as he pressed my hand. I threw myself on his neck; we kissed.

Ten minutes after the convicts had gone out, my companion and myself

left the jail _for ever_. We went to the blacksmith’s shop, where our

irons were struck off. We had no armed escort, we went there attended by

a single sub-officer. It was convicts who struck off our irons in the

engineers’ workshop. I let them do it for my friend first, then went to

the anvil myself. The smiths made me turn round, seized my leg, and

stretched it on the anvil. Then they went about the business

methodically, as though they wanted to make a very neat job of it

indeed.

“The rivet, man, turn the rivet first,” I heard the master smith say;

“there, so, so. Now, a stroke of the hammer!”

The irons fell. I lifted them up. Some strange impulse made me long to

have them in my hands for one last time. I couldn’t realise that, only a

moment before, they had been on my limbs.

“Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye!” said the convicts in their broken

voices; but they seemed pleased as they said it.

Yes, farewell!

Liberty! New life! Resurrection from the dead!

Unspeakable moment!

THE END

THE TEMPLE PRESS, PRINTERS, LETCHWORTH

Note: On page 325, “the other two were the spy A----n” changed to

“the other two were the spy A--v”