The house of the dead or, Prison life in Siberia
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