The House of the Dead/Part 1/Chapter 8
It is difficult to talk about “determined” characters; in prison as everywhere else they are few in number. A man may look terrible; if one considers what is said of him one keeps out of his way. An instinctive feeling made me shun such people at first. Afterwards I changed my views in many respects, even about the most terrible murderers. Some who had never murdered anyone were more terrible than others who had been convicted of six murders. There was an element of something so strange in some crimes that one could not form even a rudimentary conception of them. I say this because among the peasantry murders are sometimes committed for most astounding reasons. The following type of murderer, for instance, is to be met with and not uncommonly indeed. He lives quietly and peaceably and puts up with a hard life. He may be a peasant, a house-serf, a soldier or a workman. Suddenly something in him seems to snap; his patience gives way and he sticks a knife into his enemy and oppressor. Then the strangeness begins: the man gets out of all bounds for a time. The first man he murdered was his oppressor, his enemy; that is criminal but comprehensible; in that case, there was a motive. But later on he murders not enemies but anyone he comes upon, murders for amusement, for an insulting word, for a look, to make a round number or simply “out of my way, don’t cross my path, I am coming!” The man is, as it were, drunk, in delirium. It is as though, having once overstepped the sacred limit, he begins to revel in the fact that nothing is sacred to him; as though he had an itching to defy all law and authority at once, and to enjoy the most unbridled and unbounded liberty, to enjoy the thrill of horror which he cannot help feeling at himself. He knows, too, that a terrible punishment is awaiting him. All this perhaps is akin to the sensation with which a man gazes down from a high tower into the depths below his feet till at last it would be a relief to throw himself headlong—anything to put an end to it quickly. And this happens even to the most peaceable and till then inconspicuous people. Some of these people positively play a part to themselves in this delirium. The more down-trodden such a man has been before, the more he itches now to cut a dash, to strike terror into people. He enjoys their terror and likes even the repulsion he arouses in others. He assumes a sort of desperateness, and a desperate character sometimes looks forward to speedy punishment, looks forward to being settled, because he finds it burdensome at last to keep up his assumed recklessness. It is curious that in most cases all this state of mind, this whole pose persists up to the moment of the scaffold, and then it is cut short once for all; as though its duration were prescribed and defined beforehand. At the end of it, the man suddenly gives in, retires into the background and becomes as limp as a rag. He whimpers on the scaffold and begs forgiveness of the crowd. He comes to prison and he is such a drivelling, snivelling fellow that one wonders whether he can be the man who has murdered five or six people.
Some, of course, are not soon subdued even in prison. They still preserve a certain bravado, a certain boastfulness which seems to say “I am not what you take me for; I am in for six souls!” But yet he, too, ends by being subdued. Only at times he amuses himself by recalling his reckless exploits, the festive time he once had when he was a “desperate character,” and if he can only find a simple-hearted listener there is nothing he loves better than to give himself airs and boast with befitting dignity, describing his feats, though he is careful not to betray the pleasure this gives him. “See the sort of man I was,” he seems to say.
And with what subtlety this pose is maintained, how lazily casual the story sometimes is! What studied nonchalance is apparent in the tone, in every word! Where do such people pick it up?
Once in those early days I spent a long evening lying idle and depressed on the plank bed and listened to such a story, and in my inexperience took the storyteller to be a colossal, hideous criminal of an incredible strength of will, while I was inclined to take Petrov lightly. The subject of the narrative was how the speaker, Luka Kuzmitch, for no motive but his own amuse ment had laid out a major. This Luka Kuzmitch was the little, thin, sharp-nosed young convict in our room, a Little Russian by birth, whom I have mentioned already. He was really a Great Russian, but had been born in the south; I believe he was a house-serf. There was really something pert and aggressive about him, “though the bird is small its claw is sharp.” But convicts instinctively see through a man. They had very little respect for him, or as the convicts say, “little respect to him.” He was fearfully vain. He was sitting that evening on the platform bed, sewing a shirt. Sewing undergarments was his trade. Beside him was sitting a convict called Kobylin, a tall, stalwart lad, stupid and dull-witted but good-natured and friendly, who slept next to him on the bed. As they were neighbours, Lutchka frequently quarrelled with him and generally treated him superciliously, ironically and despotically, of which Kobylin in his simplicity was not fully conscious. He was knitting a woollen stocking listening indifferently to Lutchka. The latter was telling his story rather loudly and distinctly. He wanted every one to hear, though he tried to pretend that he was telling no one but Kobylin.
“Well, brother, they sent me from our parts,” he began, sticking in his needle, “to Tch—v for being a tramp.”
“When was that, long ago?” asked Kobylin.
“It will be a year ago when the peas come in. Well, when we came to K. they put me in prison there for a little time. In prison with me there were a dozen fellows, all Little Russians, tall, healthy, and as strong as bulls. But they were such quiet chaps; the food was bad; the major did as he liked with them. I hadn’t been there two days before I saw they were a cowardly lot. ‘Why do you knock under to a fool like that?’ says I.
“‘You go and talk to him yourself!’ they said, and they fairly laughed at me. I didn’t say anything. One of those Little Russians was particularly funny, lads,” he added suddenly, abandoning Kobylin and addressing the company generally.
“He used to tell us how he was tried and what he said at the court, and kept crying as he told us; he had a wife and children left behind, he told us. And he was a big, stout, grey-headed old fellow. ‘I says to him: nay!’ he told us. And he, the devil’s son, kept on writing and writing. “Well,” says I to myself, “may you choke. I’d be pleased to see it.” And he kept on writing and writing and at last he’d written something and it was my ruin!’ Give me some thread, Vassya, the damned stuff is rotten.”
“It’s from the market,” said Vassya, giving him some thread.
“Ours in the tailoring shop is better. The other day we sent our veteran for some and I don’t know what wretched woman he buys it from,” Lutchka went on threading his needle by the light.
“A crony of his no doubt.”
“No doubt.”
“Well, but what about the major?” asked Kobylin, who had been quite forgotten.
This was all Lutchka wanted. But he did not go on with his story at once; apparently he did not deign to notice Kobylin. He calmly pulled out his thread, calmly and lazily drew up his legs under him and at last began to speak.
“I worked up my Little Russians at last and they asked for the major. And I borrowed a knife from my neighbour that morning, I took it and hid it to be ready for anything. The major flew into a rage and he drove up. ‘Come,’ said I, ‘don’t funk it, you chaps.’ But their hearts failed them, they were all of a tremble! The major ran in, drunk. ‘Who is here? What’s here? I am Tsar, I am God, too.’ As he said that I stepped forward,” Lutchka proceeded, “my knife in my sleeve.
“‘No,’ said I, ‘your honour,’ and little by little I got closer. ‘No, how can it be, your honour,’ said I, ‘that you are our Tsar and God too?’
“‘Ah, that’s you, that’s you,’ shouted the major. ‘You mutinous fellow!’
“‘No,’ I said, and I got closer and closer. ‘No,’ I said, ‘your honour, as may be well known to yourself, our God the Almighty and All Present is the only One. And there is only one Tsar set over us by God himself. He, your honour, is called a monarch,’ says I. ‘And you,’ says I, ‘your honour, are only a major, our commander by the grace of the Tsar and your merits,’ says I. ‘What, what, what, what!’ he fairly cackled, he choked and couldn’t speak. He was awfully astonished. ‘Why, this,’ says I, and I just pounced on him and plunged the whole knife into his stomach. It did the trick. He rolled over and did not move except for his legs kicking. I threw down the knife. ‘Look, you fellows, pick him up now!’ says I.”Here I must make a digression. Unhappily such phrases as “I am your Tsar, I am your God, too,” and many similar expressions were not uncommonly used in old days by many commanding officers. It must be admitted, however, that there are not many such officers left; perhaps they are extinct altogether. I may note that the officers who liked to use and prided themselves on using such expressions were mostly those who had risen from the lower ranks. Their promotion turns everything topsy-turvy in them, including their brains. After groaning under the yoke for years and passing through every subordinate grade, they suddenly see themselves officers, gentlemen in command, and in the first intoxication of their position their inexperience leads them to an exaggerated idea of their power and importance; only in relation to their subordinates, of course. To their superior officers they show the same servility as ever, though it is utterly unnecessary and even revolting to many people. Some of these servile fellows hasten with peculiar zest to declare to their superior officers that they come from the lower ranks, though they are officers, and that “they never forget their place.” But with the common soldiers they are absolutely autocratic. Now, of course, there are scarcely any of these men left, and I doubt if anyone could be found to shout, “I am your Tsar, I am your God.” But in spite of that, I may remark that nothing irritates convicts, and indeed all people of the poorer class, so much as such utterances on the part of their officers. This insolence of self-glorification, this exaggerated idea of being able to do anything with impunity, inspires hatred in the most submissive of men and drives them out of all patience. Fortunately this sort of behaviour, now almost a thing of the past, was always severely repressed by the authorities even in old days. I know several instances of it.
And, indeed, people in a humble position generally are irritated by any supercilious carelessness, any sign of contempt shown them. Some people think that if convicts are well fed and well kept and all the requirements of the law are satisfied, that is all that is necessary. This is an error, too. Every one, whoever he may be and however down-trodden he may be, demands—though perhaps instinctively, perhaps unconsciously—respect for his dignity as a human being. The convict knows himself that he is a convict, an outcast, and knows his place before his commanding officer; but by no branding, by no fetters will you make him forget that he is a human being. And as he really is a human being he ought to be treated humanely. My God, yes! Humane treatment may humanize even one in whom the image of God has long been obscured. These “unfortunates” need even more humane treatment than others. It is their salvation and their joy. I have met some good-hearted, high-minded officers. I have seen the influence they exerted on these degraded creatures. A few kind words from them meant almost a moral resurrection for the convicts. They were as pleased as children and as children began to love them. I must mention another strange thing: the convicts themselves do not like to be treated too familiarly and too softly by their officers. They want to respect those in authority over them, and too much softness makes them cease to respect them. The convicts like their commanding officer to have decorations, too, they like him to be presentable, they like him to be in favour with some higher authority, they like him to be strict and important and just, and they like him to keep up his dignity. The convicts prefer such an officer: they feel that he keeps up his own dignity and does not insult them, and so they feel everything is right and as it should be.
“You must have caught it hot for that?” Kobylin observed calmly.
“H’m! Hot, my boy, yes—it was hot certainly. Aley, pass the scissors! Why is it they are not playing cards to-day, lads?"
“They’ve drunk up all their money,” observed Vassya. “If they hadn’t they’d have been playing.”
“If! They’ll give you a hundred roubles for an ‘if’ in Moscow,” observed Lutchka.
“And how much did you get altogether, Lutchka?” Kobylin began again.
“They gave me a hundred and five, my dear chap. And, you know, they almost killed me, mates,” Lutchka declared, abandoning Kobylin again. “They drove me out in full dress to be flogged. Till then I’d never tasted the lash. There were immense crowds, the whole town ran out: a robber was to be flogged, a murderer, to be sure. You can’t think what fools the people are, there’s no telling you. The hangman stripped me, made me lie down and shouted, ‘Look out, I’ll sting you.’ I wondered what was coming. At the first lash I wanted to shout, I opened my mouth but there was no shout in me. My voice failed me. When the second lash came, you may not believe it, I did not hear them count two. And when I came to I heard them call ‘seventeen.’ Four times, lad, they took me off the donkey, and gave me half an hour’s rest and poured water over me. I looked at them all with my eyes starting out of my head and thought ‘I shall die on the spot. . . .’”
“And you didn’t die?” Kobylin asked naively.
Lutchka scanned him with a glance of immense contempt; there was a sound of laughter.
“He is a regular block!”
“He is not quite right in the top storey,” observed Lutchka, as though regretting he had deigned to converse with such a man.
“He is a natural,” Vassya summed up conclusively. Though Lutchka had murdered six people no one was ever afraid of him in the prison, yet perhaps it was his cherished desire to be considered a terrible man.