The house of the dead or, Prison life in Siberia
But what repels them above all, is the Germanism of the hospitals, the
idea that during their illness they will be attended to by foreigners,
the severity of the diet, the heartlessness of the surgeons and doctors,
the dissection and autopsy of the bodies, etc. The common people
reflect, moreover, that they will be attended by nobles--for in their
view the doctors belong to the nobility. Once they have made
acquaintance with them (there are exceptions, no doubt, but they are
rare), their fears vanish. This success must be attributed to our
doctors, especially the young ones, who, for the most part, know how to
gain the respect and affection of the people. I speak now of what I
myself have seen and experienced in many cases and in different parts,
and I think matters are the same everywhere. In some distant localities
the doctors receive presents, make profit out of their hospitals, and
neglect the patients; sometimes they forget even their art. This
happens, no doubt; but I am speaking of the majority, inspired as it is
by that spirit, that generous tendency which is regenerating the medical
art. As for the apostates, the wolves in the sheep-fold, they may excuse
themselves, and cast the blame on the circumstances amid which they
live; but they are absurd, inexcusable, especially if they are no longer
humane; it is precisely the humanity, affability, and brotherly
compassion of the doctor which prove most efficacious remedies for the
patients. It is time to stop these apathetic lamentations on the
circumstances surrounding us. There may be truth in the lament, but a
cunning rogue who knows how to take care of himself never fails to
blame the circumstances around him when he wishes his faults to be
forgiven--above all, if he writes or speaks with eloquence.
I have again departed from my subject; I wish only to say that the
common people mistrust and dislike officialism and the Government
doctors, rather than the doctors themselves; but on personal
acquaintance many prejudices disappear.
Our doctor generally stopped before the bed of each patient, questioned
him seriously and attentively, then prescribed the remedies, potions,
etc. He sometimes noticed that the pretended invalid was not ill at all;
he had come to take rest after his hard work, and to sleep on a mattress
in a warm room, far preferable to the naked planks in a damp guard-house
among a mass of pale, broken-down men, waiting for their trial. In
Russia the prisoners in the House of Detention are almost always broken
down, which shows that their moral and material condition is worse even
than those of the convicts.
In cases of feigned sickness our doctor would describe the patient as
suffering from _febris catharalis_, and sometimes allowed him to remain
a week in the hospital. Every one laughed at this _febris catharalis_,
for it was known to be a formula agreed upon between the doctor and the
patient to indicate no malady at all. Often the robust invalid who
abused the doctor’s compassion remained in the hospital until he was
turned out by force. Our doctor was worth seeing then. Confused by the
prisoner’s obstinacy, he did not like to tell him plainly that he was
cured and offer him his leaving ticket, although he had the right to
send him away without the least explanation on writing the words,
_sanat. est_. First he would hint to him that it was time to go, and
then would beg him to leave.
“You must go, you know you are cured now, and we have no place for you,
we are very much cramped here, etc.”
At last, ashamed to remain any longer, the patient would consent to go.
The physician-in-chief, although compassionate and just (the patients
were much attached to him), was incomparably more severe and more
decided than our ordinary physician. In certain cases he showed
merciless severity which only gained for him the respect of the
convicts. He always came into the room accompanied by all the doctors of
the hospital, when his assistants visited all the beds and diagnosed on
each particular case; he stopped longest at the beds of those who were
seriously ill, and had an encouraging word for them. He never sent back
the convicts who arrived with _febris catharalis_; but if one of them
was determined to remain in the hospital, he certified that the man was
cured. “Come,” he would say, “you have had your rest; now go, you must
not take liberties.”
Those who insisted upon remaining, were, above all, the convicts who
were worn out by field labour, performed during the great summer heat,
or prisoners who had been sentenced to be whipped. I remember that they
were obliged to be particularly severe, merely in order to get rid of
one of them. He had come to be cured of some disease of the eyes, which
were red all over; he complained of suffering a sharp pain in the
eyelids. He was incurable; plasters, blisters, leeches, nothing did him
any good; and the diseased organ remained in the same condition.
Then it occurred to the doctors that the illness was feigned, for the
inflammation neither became worse nor better; and they soon understood
that a comedy was being played, although the patient would not admit it.
He was a fine young fellow, not ill-looking, though he produced a
disagreeable impression upon all his companions; he was suspicious,
sombre, full of dissimulation, and never looked any one straight in the
face; he also kept himself apart as if he mistrusted us all. I remember
that many persons were afraid that he would do some one harm.
When he was a soldier he had committed some small theft, he had been
arrested and condemned to receive a thousand strokes, and afterwards to
pass into a disciplinary company.
To put off the moment of punishment, the prisoners, as I have already
said, will do incredible things. On the eve of the fatal day, they will
stick a knife into one of their chiefs, or into a comrade, in order that
they may be tried again for this new offence, which will delay their
punishment for a month or two. It matters little to them that their
punishment be doubled or tripled, if they can escape this time. What
they desire is to put off temporarily the terrible minute at whatever
cost, so utterly does their heart fail them.
Many of the patients thought the man with the sore eyes ought to be
watched, lest in his despair he should assassinate some one during the
night; but no precaution was taken, not even by those who slept next to
him. It was remarked, however, that he rubbed his eyes with plaster from
the wall, and with something else besides, in order that they might
appear red when the doctor came round; at last the doctor-in-chief
threatened to cure him by-means of a seton.
When the malady resists all ordinary treatment, the doctors determine to
try some heroic, however painful, remedy. But the poor devil did not
wish to get well, he was either too obstinate or too cowardly; for,
however painful the proposed operation may be, it cannot be compared to
the punishment of the rods.
The operation consists in seizing the patient by the nape of the neck,
taking up the skin, drawing it back as much as possible, and making in
it a double incision, through which is passed a skein of cotton about as
thick as the finger. Every day at a fixed hour this skein is pulled
backwards and forwards in order that the wound may continually suppurate
and may not heal; the poor devil endured this torture which caused him
horrible suffering, for several days.
At last he consented to quit the hospital. In less than a day his eyes
became quite well; and, as soon as his neck was healed, he was sent to
the guard-house which he left next day to receive the first thousand
strokes.
Painful is the minute which precedes such a punishment; so painful, that
perhaps I am wrong in taxing with cowardice those convicts who fear it.
It must be terrible; for the convicts to risk a double or triple
punishment, merely to postpone it. I have spoken, however, of convicts
who have thus wished to quit the hospital before the wounds caused by
the first part of the flogging were healed, in order to receive the last
part and make an end of it. For life in a guard-room is certainly worse
than in a convict prison.
The habit of receiving floggings helps in some cases to give intrepidity
and decision to convicts. Those who have been often flogged, are
hardened both in body and mind, and have at last looked upon such a
punishment as merely a disagreeable incident no longer to be feared.
One of our convicts of the special section was a converted Tartar, who
was named Alexander, or Alexandrina, as they called him in fun at the
convict prison; who told me how he had received 4,000 strokes. He never
spoke of this punishment except with amusement and laughter; but he
swore very seriously that if he had not been brought up in his horde,
from his most tender infancy, on whipping and flogging--and as the scars
which covered his back, and which refused to disappear, were there to
testify--he would never have been able to support those 4,000 strokes.
He blessed the education of sticks that he had received.
“I was beaten for the least thing, Alexander Petrovitch,” he said one
evening, when we were sitting down before the fire. “I was beaten
without reason for fifteen years, as long as I can ever remember, and
several times a day. Any one who liked beat me; so that, at last, it
made no impression upon me.”
I do not know how it was he became a soldier, for perhaps he lied, and
had always been a deserter and vagabond. But I remember his telling me
one day of the fright he was seized with when he was condemned to
receive 4,000 strokes for having killed one of his officers.
“I know that they will punish me severely,” he said to himself, “that,
accustomed as I am to be whipped, I shall perhaps die on the spot. The
devil! 4,000 strokes is not a trifle; and then all my officers were in a
fearful temper with me on account of this affair. I knew well that it
would not be ‘rose-water.’ I even believed that I should die under the
rods. I determined to get baptized. I said to myself, that perhaps they
would not then flog me, at any rate it was worth trying, my comrades had
told me that it would be of no good. But,’ I said to myself, ‘who knows?
perhaps they will pardon me, they will have more compassion on a
Christian than on a Mohammedan. They baptized me, and give me the name
of Alexander; but, in spite of that, I had to take my flogging; they did
not let me off a single stroke; I was, however, very savage. ‘Wait a
bit,’ I said to myself, ‘and I will take you all in’; and, would you
believe it, Alexander? I did take them all in. I knew how to look like a
dead man; not that I appeared altogether without life, but I looked as
if I were on the point of breathing my last. They led me in front of the
battalion to receive my first thousand; my skin was burning, I began to
howl. They gave me my second thousand, and I said to myself, ‘It’s all
over now.’ I had lost my head, my legs seemed broken, so I fell to the
ground, with the eyes of a dead man. My face blue, my mouth full of
froth, I no longer breathed. When the doctor came he said I was on the
point of death. I was carried to the hospital, and at once returned to
life. Twice again they flogged me. What a rage they were in! I took them
all in on each occasion. I received my third thousand, and died again.
On my word, when they gave me the last thousand each stroke ought to
have counted for three, it was like a knife in my heart. Oh, how they
did beat me! They were so severe with me. Oh, that cursed fourth
thousand! it was well worth three firsts put together. If I had
pretended to be dead when I had still 200 to receive, I think they would
have finished me; but they did not get the better of me. I had them