The Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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I did not like was the thought that these people, with their smiling knavery, took me for a fool and laughed at me just because I lent money for the fifth time. I must have seemed to them a veritable dupe. If, on the contrary, I had refused and sent them away, I am certain that they would have had much more respect for me. Still, though it vexed me very much, I could not refuse them.
I was rather anxious during the first days to discover where I stood, and to decide what rule of conduct I should follow in my relations with others. I felt and perfectly understood that, the place being in every way new to me, I was walking in darkness, and that it would be impossible to live ten years in darkness. I decided to act frankly, according to the dictates of my conscience and personal feeling. But I also realized that while this decision might be all very well in theory, I should, in practice, be guided by events as yet unforeseen. Therefore, in addition to all the petty annoyances caused to me by my confinement, one terrible anguish laid hold of me and tormented me more and more.
‘The house of the dead!’ I said to myself as night fell and watched from the doorway of our barrack the prisoners just come from work walking about the courtyard, passing between the kitchen and the barracks. As I studied their movements and their faces I tried to guess what sort of men they were, and what their dispositions might be.
They lounged about there, some with lowered brows, others full of gaiety-one of those two expressions was seen on very convict’s face-exchanged insults, or talked of trivialities. Sometimes, too, they wandered about alone, apparently occupied with their own reflections; some of them with a worn-out, pathetic look, others with the conceited air of superiority. Yes, here, even here!-caps balanced on the side of their heads, their sheepskin coats flung picturesquely over their shoulders, insolence in their eyes, and mockery on their lips.
‘Here is the world to which I am condemned, in which, despite myself, I must somehow live,’ I said.
I endeavoured to question Akim Akimitch, with whom, for the sake of company, I liked to take my tea; for I wanted to know something about the different convicts. In parenthesis we may say that tea was almost my only nourishment in the early days of my imprisonment. Akim Akimitch never refused to share it with me, and he himself heated our tin samovars, which were made in prison and hired out by M-.
Akim Akimitch generally drank a glass of tea (he had classes of his own) calmly and silently, then thanked me and at once went to work on my blanket; but he had not been able to tell me what I wanted to know, and could not even understand my desire to know the characters of the men around me. He merely listened with a cunning smile which is still vivid in my memory. ‘No,’ I thought, ‘I must find out for myself; it is useless to interrogate others.’
Early on the morning of the fourth day, the convicts were drawn up in two ranks in the courtyard before the guardhouse, close to the prison gates. Before and behind them were soldiers with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets.
A soldier has the right to fire on any convict who tries to escape, but he is answerable for his shot if there is no absolute necessity to open fire. The same thing applies to mutiny.But who would think of openly taking to flight?
The engineer officer arrived accompanied by the so-called conductor and some noncommissioned officers of the Line, together with sappers and soldiers told off to superintend the work.
The roll was called, and the convicts who were going to the tailors’ shop were marched off first. These men worked inside the prison, and made clothes for all the inmates. Others went to the outer workshops, until it was the turn of those detailed for field labour. I was of this group: there were altogether twenty of us. Behind the fortress on the frozen river were two Government barges. They were useless, and had to be broken up so that the timber might not be lost. This timber was itself almost worthless, for firewood can be bought in the town at a nominal price, the whole countryside being covered with forests.
The work was simply intended to give us something to do, as was understood on both sides; and accordingly we went to it apathetically. Things were very different when there was a useful job or some definite scheme to be carried out. In that case, although the men themselves derived no profit, they tried to get it done as soon as possible, and took a pride in doing it quickly. But when the labour was a matter of form rather than of necessity, no high-powered effort could be expected. We had to work until the eleven o’clock drum told us to cease.
The day was warm and foggy, the snow was on the point of melting. Our group walked towards the bank behind the fortress, our chains rattling beneath our garments; the sound was clear and ringing. Two or three convicts went to collect tools from the depot.
I walked ahead with the others, rather excited, for I was anxious to discover in what this field labour consisted, to what sort of work I was condemned, and how I should do it for the first time in my life.
I remember the smallest particulars. As we walked along we met a townsman with a long beard, who stopped and slipped his hand into his pocket. One man fell out, took off his cap and received alms-to the extent of five kopecks-then hurried back. The townsman made the sign of the cross and went his way. Those five kopecks were spent the same morning in buying scones of white bread which were shared equally amongst us. Some of my squad were gloomy and taciturn, others indifferent and indolent. There were some who kept up a perpetual chatter One of them was extremely gay, heaven knows why; he sang and danced as we went along, shaking and ringing his chains at every step. He was a huge fat man, the same who, on the day of my arrival at washing time, had quarrelled with one of his companions about the water, and had ventured to compare him to some sort of bird. His name was Scuratoff. He finished by shouting out a lively song of which I remember the burden:
‘They married me without my consent, When I was at the mill.’
Nothing was wanting but a balalaika.
His extraordinary good humour was justly reproved by several of the prisoners, who took offence at it.
‘ Listen to his row,’ said one of the convicts, ‘ why can’t he shut up?’
‘ The wolf has but one song, and this Tuliak is stealing it from him,’ said another whose accent proclaimed him a Little Russian.
‘Of course I’m from Tula,’ replied Scuratoff; ‘but we don’t stuff ourselves to bursting as you do in Pultava.’
‘Liar! What did you eat yourself? Bark shoes and cabbage soup?’
‘You talk as if the devil fed you on sweet almonds,’ broke in a third.
‘I admit, my friend, that I’m softly nurtured,’ said Scuratoff with a gentle sigh, as though he were really reproaching himself for his softness. ‘I was lapped in luxury from earliest childhood, fed on plums and dainty cakes. My brothers even now have a large business at Moscow: they’re wholesale dealers in the wind that blows-immensely rich men, as you may imagine.’
‘And what did you sell?’
‘I was very successful, and when I received my first two hundred’
‘Roubles? Impossible!’ interrupted one of the prisoners, struck with amazement at hearing of so large a sum.
‘No, my good fellow, not two hundred roubles, two hundred strokes. Luka! I say Luka!’
‘ Some have the right to call me Luka, but to you I’m Luka Kouzmitch,’ retorted a small, feeble convict with a pointed nose.
‘The devil take you, you’re really not worth speaking to; yet I wanted to be civil to you. But to continue my story. This is how it happened that I left Moscow. I received my last fifteen strokes and was then sent off, and was at’
‘But what were you sent for?’ asked another convict who had been listening attentively.
‘Don’t ask stupid questions. I was explaining to you how it was I did not make my fortune at Moscow; and yet you can’t imagine how anxious I was to be rich.’
Several prisoners began to laugh. Scuratoff was one of those lively persons, full of animal spirits, who take a pleasure in amusing their graver companions, and who, as a matter of course, received