The house of the dead or, Prison life in Siberia
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