The house of the dead or, Prison life in Siberia
easy manners, but was very presumptuous, and suffered from morbid
self-esteem. Convinced that there was no one in the world a bit more
honest or more just than himself, he did not consider himself at all
guilty, and never kept this assurance to himself.
This personage was the first to address me, and he questioned me with
much curiosity. He initiated me into the ways of the hospital; and, of
course, began by telling me that he was the son of a captain. He was
very anxious that I should take him for a noble, or at least, for some
one connected with the nobility.
Soon afterwards an invalid from the Disciplinary Company came and told
me that he knew a great many nobles who had been exiled; and, to
convince me, he repeated to me their christian names and their
patronymics. It was only necessary to see the face of this soldier to
understand that he was lying abominably. He was named Tchekounoff, and
came to pay court to me, because he suspected me of having money. When
he saw a packet of tea and sugar, he at once offered me his services to
make the water boil and to get me a tea-urn. M. D. S. K---- had promised
to send me my own by one of the prisoners who worked in the hospital,
but Tchekounoff arranged to get me one forthwith. He got me a tin
vessel, in which he made the water boil; and, in a word, he showed such
extraordinary zeal, that it drew down upon him bitter laughter from one
of the patients, a consumptive man, whose bed was just opposite mine,
Usteantseff by name. This was the soldier condemned to the rods, who,
from fear, had swallowed a bottle of vodka, in which he had infused
tobacco, this bringing on lung disease.
I have spoken of him above. He had remained silent until now, stretched
out on his bed, and breathing with difficulty. He looked at me all the
time with a very serious air. He did not take his eyes from Tchekounoff,
whose civility irritated him. His extraordinary gravity rendered his
indignation comic. At last he could stand it no longer.
“Look at this fellow! He has found his master,” he said, stammering out
the words with a voice strangled by weakness, for he had now not long to
live.
Tchekounoff, much annoyed, turned round.
“Who is the fellow?” he asked, looking at Usteantseff, with contempt.
“Why, you are a flunkey,” replied Usteantseff, as confidently as if he
had possessed the right of calling Tchekounoff to order.
“I a fellow?”
“Yes, you are a flunkey; a true flunkey. Listen, my good friends. He
won’t believe me. He is quite astonished, the brave fellow.”
“What can that matter to you? You see when they don’t know how to make
use of their hands that they are not accustomed to be without servants.
Why should I not serve him, buffoon with a hairy snout?”
“Who has a hairy snout?”
“You!”
“I have a hairy snout?”
“Yes; certainly you have.”
“You are a nice fellow, you are. If I have a hairy snout, you have a
face like a crow’s egg.”
“Hairy snout! The merciful Lord has settled your account. You would do
much better to keep quiet and die.”
“Why? I would rather prostrate myself before a boot than before a
slipper. My father never prostrated himself, and never made me do so.”
He would have continued, but an attack of coughing convulsed him for
some minutes. He spat blood, and a cold sweat broke out on his low
forehead. If his cough had not prevented him from speaking, he would
have continued to declaim. One could see that from his look; but in his
powerlessness he could only move his hand, the result of which was that
Tchekounoff spoke no more about the matter.
I quite understood that the consumptive patient hated me much more than
Tchekounoff. No one would have thought of being angry with him or of
looking down upon him by reason of the services he was rendering me, and
the few kopecks that he tried to get from me. Every one understood that
he did it all in order to get himself a little money.
The Russian people are not at all susceptible on such points, and know
perfectly well how to take them.
I had displeased Usteantseff, as my tea had also displeased him. What
irritated him was that, in spite of all, I was a gentleman, even with my
chains; that I could not do without a servant, though I neither asked
for nor desired one. In reality I tried to do everything for myself, in
order not to appear a white-handed, effeminate person, and not to play
the part which excited so much envy.
I even felt a little pride on this point; but, in spite of every
thing--I do not know why--I was always surrounded by officious,
complaisant people, who attached themselves to me of their own free
will, and who ended by governing me. It was I rather who was their
servant; so that, whether I liked it or not, I was made to appear to
every one a noble, who could not do without the services of others, and
who gave himself airs. This exasperated me.
Usteantseff was consumptive, and, therefore, irascible. The other
patients only showed me indifference, tinged with a shade of contempt.
They were occupied with a circumstance which now presents itself to my
memory.
I learned, as I listened to their conversation, that there was to be
brought into the hospital that evening a convict who, at that moment,
was receiving the rods. The prisoners were looking forward to this new
arrival with some curiosity. They said, however, that his punishment was
but slight--only five hundred strokes.
I looked round. The greater number of genuine patients were, as far as I
could observe, affected by scurvy and diseases of the eyes--both
peculiar to this country. The others suffered from fever, lung disease,
and other illnesses. The different illnesses were not separated; all the
patients were together in the same room.
I have spoken of genuine patients, for certain convicts had come in
merely to get a little rest. The doctors admitted them from pure
compassion, above all, if there were any vacant beds. Life in the
guard-house and in the prison was so hard compared with that of the
hospital, that many persons preferred to remain lying down in spite of
the stifling atmosphere and the rules against leaving the room.
There were even men who took pleasure in this kind of life. They
belonged nearly all to the Disciplinary Company. I examined my new
companions with curiosity. One of them puzzled me very much. He was
consumptive, and was dying. His bed was a little further on than that of
Usteantseff, and was nearly beside mine. He was named Mikhailoff. I had
seen him in the Convict Prison two weeks before, when he was already
seriously ill. He ought to have been under treatment long before, but
he bore up against his malady with surprising courage. He did not go to
the hospital until about the Christmas holidays, to die three weeks
afterwards of galloping consumption. He seemed to have burned out like a
candle. What astonished me most was the terrible change in his
countenance. I had noticed him the very first day of my imprisonment. By
his side was lying a soldier of the Disciplinary Company--an old man
with a bad expression on his face, whose general appearance was
disgusting.
But I am not going to enumerate all the patients. I just remember this
old man simply because he made an impression on me, and initiated me at
once into certain peculiarities of the ward. He had a severe cold in the
head, which made him sneeze at every moment, even during his sleep, as
if firing salutes, five or six times running, while each time he called
out, “My God, what torture!”
Seated on his bed he stuffed his nose eagerly with snuff, which he took
from a paper bag, in order to sneeze more strongly, and with greater
regularity. He sneezed into a checked cotton pocket-handkerchief which
belonged to him, and which had lost its colour through perpetual
washing. His little nose then became wrinkled in a most peculiar manner
with a multitude of wrinkles, and his open mouth exhibited broken teeth,
decayed and black, and red gums moist with saliva. When he sneezed into
his handkerchief he unfolded it and wiped it on the lining of his
dressing-gown. His proceedings disgusted me so much that involuntarily I
examined the dressing-gown I had just put on myself. It exhaled a most
offensive odour, which contact with my body helped to bring out. It
smelt of plasters and medicaments of all kinds. It seemed as though it
had been worn by patients from time immemorial. The lining had, perhaps,
been washed once, but I would not swear to it. Certainly, at the time I
put it on, it was saturated with lotions, and stained by contact with
poultices and plasters of all imaginable kinds.
The men condemned to the rods, having undergone their punishment, were
brought straight to the hospital, their backs still bleeding. As
compresses and as poultices were placed on their wounds, the
dressing-gown they wore over their wet shirt received and retained the
droppings.
During all the time of my hard labour I had to go to the hospital, which
often happened, I always put on, with mistrust and abhorrence, the
dressing-gown that was delivered to me. As soon as Tchekounoff had given
me my tea (I will say, in parenthesis, that the water brought in in the
morning, and not renewed throughout the day, was soon corrupted, soon
poisoned by the fetid air), the door opened, and the soldier, who had
just received the rods, was brought in under a double escort. I saw, for
the first time, a man who had just been whipped. Later on many were
brought in, and whenever this happened it caused great distress to the
patients. These unfortunate men were received with grave composure, but
the nature of the reception depended nearly always on the enormity of
the crime committed, and, consequently, the number of strokes
administered.
The criminals most cruelly whipped, and who were celebrated as brigands
of the first order, enjoyed more respect and attention than a simple
deserter, a recruit, like the one who had just been brought in. But in
neither case was any particular sympathy manifested, nor were any
annoying remarks made. The unhappy man was attended to in silence, above
all if he was incapable of attending to himself. The assistant-surgeons
knew that they were entrusting their patients to skilful and experienced
hands. The usual treatment consisted in applying very often to the back
of the man who had been whipped a shirt or a piece of linen steeped in
cold water. It was also necessary to withdraw skilfully from the wounds
the twigs left by the rods which had been broken on the criminal’s back.
This last operation was particularly painful to the patients. The
extraordinary stoicism with which they supported their sufferings
astonished me greatly.
I have seen many convicts who had been whipped, and cruelly, I can tell
you. Well, I do not remember one of them uttering a groan. Only after
such an experience, the countenance becomes pale, decomposed, the eyes
glitter, the look wanders, and the lips tremble so that the patient
sometimes bites them till they bleed.
The soldier who had just come in was twenty-three years of age; he had a
good muscular development, and was rather a fine man, tall, well-made,
with a bronzed skin. His back, uncovered down to the waist, had been
seriously beaten, and his body now trembled with fever beneath the damp
sheet with which his back was covered. For about an hour and a half he
did nothing but walk backwards and forwards in the room. I looked at his
face: he seemed to be thinking of nothing; his eyes had a strange
expression, at once wild and timid; they seemed to fix themselves with
difficulty on the various objects. I fancied I saw him looking
attentively at my hot tea; the steam was rising from the full cup, and
the poor devil was shivering and clattering his teeth. I invited him to