The house of the dead or, Prison life in Siberia
renowned in the town. Its good quality was attributed to the excellent
construction of the prison ovens. As for our cabbage-soup, it was cooked
and thickened with flour. It had not an appetising appearance. On
working days it was clear and thin; but what particularly disgusted me
was the way it was served. The prisoners, however, paid no attention to
that.
During the three days that followed my arrival, I did not go to work.
Some respite was always given to prisoners just arrived, in order to
allow them to recover from their fatigue. The second day I had to go out
of the convict prison in order to be ironed. My chain was not of the
regulation pattern; it was composed of rings, which gave forth a clear
sound, so I heard other convicts say. I had to wear them externally over
my clothes, whereas my companions had chains formed, not of rings, but
of four links, as thick as the finger, and fastened together by three
links which were worn beneath the trousers. To the central ring was
fastened a strip of leather, tied in its turn to a girdle fastened over
the shirt.
I can see again the first morning that I passed in the convict prison.
The drum sounded in the orderly room, near the principal entrance. Ten
minutes afterwards the under officer opened the barracks. The convicts
woke up one after another and rose trembling with cold from their plank
bedsteads, by the dull light of a tallow candle. Nearly all of them were
morose; they yawned and stretched themselves. Their foreheads, marked by
the iron, were contracted. Some made the sign of the Cross; others began
to talk nonsense. The cold air from outside rushed in as soon as the
door was opened. Then the prisoners hurried round the pails full of
water, one after another, and took water in their mouths, and, letting
it out into their hands, washed their faces. Those pails had been
brought in the night before by a prisoner specially appointed, according
to the rules, to clean the barracks.
The convicts chose him themselves. He did not work with the others, for
it was his business to examine the camp bedsteads and the floors, to
fetch and carry water. This water served in the morning for the
prisoners’ ablutions, and the rest during the day for ordinary drinking.
That very morning there were disputes on the subject of one of the
pitchers.
“What are you doing there with your marked forehead?” grumbled one of
the prisoners, tall, dry, and sallow.
He attracted attention by the strange protuberances with which his skull
was covered. He pushed against another convict round and small, with a
lively rubicund countenance.
“Just wait.”
“What are you crying out about? You know that a fine must be paid when
the others are kept waiting. Off with you. What a monument, my
brethren!”
“A little calf,” he went on muttering. “See, the white bread of the
prison has fattened him.”
“For what do you take yourself? A fine bird, indeed.”
“You are about right.”
“What bird do you mean?”
“You don’t require to be told.”
“How so?”
“Find out.”
They devoured one another with their eyes. The little man, waiting for a
reply, with clenched fists, was apparently ready to fight. I thought
that an encounter would take place. It was all quite new to me;
accordingly I watched the scene with curiosity. Later on I learnt that
such quarrels were very innocent, that they served for entertainment.
Like an amusing comedy, it scarcely ever ended in blows. This
characteristic plainly informed me of the manners of the prisoners.
The tall prisoner remained calm and majestic. He felt that some answer
was expected from him, if he was not to be dishonoured, covered with
ridicule. It was necessary for him to show that he was a wonderful bird,
a personage. Accordingly, he cast a side look on his adversary,
endeavouring, with inexpressible contempt, to irritate him by looking at
him over his shoulders, up and down, as he would have done with an
insect. At last the little fat man was so irritated that he would have
thrown himself upon his adversary had not his companions surrounded the
combatants to prevent a serious quarrel from taking place.
“Fight with your fists, not with your tongues,” cried a spectator from a
corner of the room.
“No, hold them,” answered another, “they are going to fight. We are fine
fellows, one against seven is our style.”
Fine fighting men! One was here for having sneaked a pound of bread, the
other is a pot-stealer; he was whipped by the executioner for stealing a
pot of curdled milk from an old woman.
“Enough, keep quiet,” cried a retired soldier, whose business it was to
keep order in the barrack, and who slept in a corner of the room on a
bedstead of his own.
“Water, my children, water for Nevalid Petrovitch, water for our little
brother, who has just woke up.”
“Your brother! Am I your brother? Did we ever drink a roublesworth of
spirits together?” muttered the old soldier as he passed his arms
through the sleeves of his great-coat.
The roll was about to be called, for it was already late. The prisoners
were hurrying towards the kitchen. They had to put on their pelisses,
and were to receive in their bi-coloured caps the bread which one of the
cooks--one of the bakers, that is to say--was distributing among them.
These cooks, like those who did the household work, were chosen by the
prisoners themselves. There were two for the kitchen, making four in all
for the convict prison. They had at their disposal the only
kitchen-knife authorised in the prison, which was used for cutting up
the bread and meat. The prisoners arranged themselves in groups around
the tables as best they could in caps and pelisses, with leather girdles
round their waists, all ready to begin work. Some of the convicts had
kvas before them, in which they steeped pieces of bread. The noise was
insupportable. Many of the convicts, however, were talking together in
corners with a steady, tranquil air.
“Good-morning and good appetite, Father Antonitch,” said a young
prisoner, sitting down by the side of an old man, who had lost his
teeth.
“If you are not joking, well, good-morning,” said the latter, without
raising his eyes, and endeavouring to masticate a piece of bread with
his toothless gums.
“I declare I fancied you were dead, Antonitch.”
“Die first, I will follow you.”
I sat down beside them. On my right two convicts were conversing with an
attempt at dignity.
“I am not likely to be robbed,” said one of them. “I am more afraid of
stealing myself.”
“It would not be a good idea to rob me. The devil! I should pay the man
out.”
“But what would you do, you are only a convict? We have no other name.
You will see that she will rob you, the wretch, without even saying,
‘Thank you.’ The money I gave her was wasted. Just fancy, she was here a
few days ago! Where were we to go? Shall I ask permission to go into the
house of Theodore, the executioner? He has still his house in the
suburb, the one he bought from that Solomon, you know, that scurvy Jew
who hung himself not long since.”
“Yes, I know him, the one who sold liquor here three years ago, and who
was called Grichka--the secret-drinking shop.”
“I know.”
“_All_ brag. You don’t know. In the first place it is another drinking
shop.”
“What do you mean, another? You don’t know what you are talking about. I
will bring you as many witnesses as you like.”
“Oh, you will bring them, will you? Who are you? Do you know to whom you
are speaking?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I have often thrashed you, though I don’t boast of it. Do not give
yourself airs then.”
“You have thrashed me? The man who will thrash me is not yet born; and
the man who did thrash me is six feet beneath the ground.”
“Plague-stricken rascal of Bender?”
“May the Siberian leprosy devour you with ulcers!”
“May a chopper cleave your dog of a head.”
Insults were falling about like rain.
“Come, now, they are going to fight. When men have not been able to
conduct themselves properly they should keep silent. They are too glad
to come and eat the Government bread, the rascals!”
They were soon separated. Let them fight with the tongue as much as they
wish. That is permitted. It is a diversion at the service of every one;
but no blows. It is, indeed, only in extraordinary cases that blows were
exchanged. If a fight took place, information was given to the Major,
who ordered an inquiry or directed one himself; and then woe to the
convicts. Accordingly they set their faces against anything like a
serious quarrel; besides, they insulted one another chiefly to pass the
time, as an oratorical exercise. They get excited; the quarrel takes a
furious, ferocious character; they seem about to slaughter one another.
Nothing of the kind takes place. As soon as their anger has reached a
certain pitch they separate.
That astonished me much, and if I relate some of the conversations
between the convicts, I do so with a purpose. Could I have imagined that
people could have insulted one another for pleasure, that they could
find enjoyment in it?
We must not forget the gratification of vanity. A dialectician, who
knows how to insult artistically, is respected. A little more, and he
would be applauded like an actor.
Already, the night before, I noticed some glances in my direction. On
the other hand, several convicts hung around me as if they had suspected
that I had brought money with me. They endeavoured to get into my good
graces by teaching me how to carry my irons without being incommoded.
They also gave me--of course in return for money--a box with a lock, in
order to keep safe the things which had been entrusted to me by the
administration, and the few shirts that I had been allowed to bring with
me to the convict prison. Not later than next morning these same
prisoners stole my box, and drank the money which they had taken out of
it.
One of them became afterwards a great friend of mine, though he robbed
me whenever an opportunity offered itself. He was, all the same, vexed
at what he had done. He committed these thefts almost unconsciously, as
if in the way of a duty. Consequently I bore him no grudge.
These convicts let me know that one could have tea, and that I should do
well to get myself a teapot. They found me one, which I hired for a
certain time. They also recommended me a cook, who, for thirty kopecks a
month, would arrange the dishes I might desire, if it was my intention
to buy provisions and take my meals apart. Of course they borrowed money
from me. The day of my arrival they asked me for some at three different
times.
The noblemen degraded from their position, here incarcerated in the
convict prison, were badly looked upon by their fellow prisoners;
although they had lost all their rights like the other convicts, they
were not looked upon as comrades.
In this instinctive repugnance there was a sort of reason. To them we
were always gentlemen, although they often laughed at our fall.
“Ah! it’s all over now. Mossieu’s carriage formerly crushed the
passers-by at Moscow. Now Mossieu picks hemp!”
They knew our sufferings, though we hid them as much as possible. It
was, above all, when we were all working together that we had most to
endure, for our strength was not so great as theirs, and we were really
not of much assistance to them. Nothing is more difficult than to gain
the confidence of the common people; above all, such people as these!
There were only a few of us who were of noble birth in the whole prison.
First, there were five Poles--of whom further on I shall speak in
detail--they were detested by the convicts more, perhaps, than the
Russian nobles. The Poles--I speak only of the political
convicts--always behaved to them with a constrained and offensive