The House of the Dead/Part 1/Chapter 9
Christmas was approaching. The convicts looked forward to it with a sort of solemnity, and looking at them, I too began to expect something unusual. Four days before Christmas Day they took us to the bath-house. In my time, especially in the early years, the convicts were rarely taken to the bath-house. All were pleased and began to get ready. It was arranged to go after dinner, and that afternoon there was no work. The one who was most pleased and excited in our room was Isay Fomitch Bumshtein, a Jewish convict whom I have mentioned in the fourth chapter of my story. He liked to steam himself into a state of stupefaction, of unconsciousness; and whenever going over old memories I recall our prison baths (which deserve to be remembered), the blissful countenance of that prison comrade whom I shall never forget, takes a foremost place in the picture. Heavens, how killingly funny he was! I have already said something about his appearance: he was a thin, feeble, puny man of fifty, with a wrinkled white body like a chicken’s and on his cheeks and forehead awful scars left from being branded. His face wore a continual expression of imperturbable self-complacency and even blissfulness. Apparently he felt no regret at being in prison. As he was a jeweller and there were no jewellers in the town, he worked continually at nothing but his own trade for the gentry and officials of the town. He received some payment for his work. He wanted for nothing, was even rich, but he saved money and used to lend it out at interest to all the convicts. He had a samovar of his own, a good mattress, cups, and a whole dining outfit. The Jews in the town did not refuse him their acquaintance and patronage. On Saturdays he used to go with an escort to the synagogue in the town (which is sanctioned by law). He was in clover, in fact. At the same time he was impatiently awaiting the end of his twelve years’ sentence “to get married.” a most comical mixture of naïveté, stupidity, craft, impudence, good-nature, timidity, boastfulness and insolence. It surprised me that the convicts never jeered at him, though they sometimes made a joke at his expense. Isay Fomitch was evidently a continual source of entertainment and amusement to all. “He is our only one, don’t hurt Isay Fomitch,” was what they felt, and although Isay Fomitch saw his position he was obviously proud of being so important and that greatly amused the convicts. His arrival in the prison was fearfully funny (it happened before my time but I was told of it). One day, in the leisure hour towards evening; a rumour suddenly spread through the prison that a Jew had been brought, and was being shaved in the guard-room and that he would come in directly. There was not a single Jew in the prison at the time. The convicts waited with impatience and surrounded him at once when he came in at the gate. The sergeant led him to the civilian room and showed him his place on the common bed. Isay Fomitch carried in his arms a sack containing his own belongings together with the regulation articles which had been given to him. He laid down the sack, climbed on to the bed and sat down tucking his feet under him, not daring to raise his eyes. There were sounds of laughter and prison jokes alluding to his Jewish origin. Suddenly a young convict made his way through the crowd carrying in his hand his very old, dirty, tattered summer trousers, together with the regulation leg-wrappers. He sat down beside Isay Fomitch and slapped him on the shoulder.
“I say, my dear friend, I’ve been looking out for you these last six years. Look here, how much will you give?”And he spread the rags out before him.
Isay Fomitch, who had been too timid to utter a word and so cowed at his first entrance that he had not dared to raise his eyes in the crowd of mocking, disfigured and terrible faces which hemmed him in, was cheered at once at the sight of the proferred pledge, and began briskly turning over the rags. He even held them up to the light. Every one waited to hear what he would say.
“Well, you won’t give me a silver rouble, I suppose? It’s worth it, you know,” said the would-be borrower winking at Isay Fomitch.
“A silver rouble, no, but seven kopecks maybe.”
And those were the first words uttered by Isay Fomitch in prison. Every one roared with laughter.
“Seven! Well, give me seven then; it’s a bit of luck for you. Mind you take care of the pledge; it’s as much as your life’s worth if you lose it.”
“With three kopecks interest makes ten,” the Jew went on jerkily in a shaking voice, putting his hand in his pocket for the money and looking timidly at the convicts. He was fearfully scared, and at the same time he wanted to do business.
“Three kopecks a year interest, I suppose?”
“No, not a year, a month.”
“You are a tight customer, Jew! What’s your name.”
“Isay Fomitch.”
“Well, Isay Fomitch, you’ll get on finely here! Good-bye.” Isay Fomitch examined the pledge once more, folded it up carefully and put it in his sack in the midst of the still laughing convicts.
Every one really seemed to like him and no one was rude to him, though almost all owed him money. He was himself as free from malice as a hen, and, seeing the general goodwill with which he was regarded, he even swaggered a little, but with such simple-hearted absurdity that he was forgiven at once. Lutchka who had known many Jews in his day often teased him and not out of ill-feeling, but simply for diversion, just as one teases dogs, parrots, or any sort of trained animal. Isay Fomitch saw that clearly, was not in the least offended and answered him back adroitly.
“Hey, Jew, I’ll give you a dressing!”
“You give me one blow and I’ll give you ten,” Isay Fomitch would respond gallantly.“You damned scab!”
“I don’t care if I am.”
“You itching Jew!”
“I don’t care if I am. I may itch, but I am rich; I’ve money.”
“You sold Christ.”
“I don’t care if I did.”
“That’s right, Isay Fomitch, bravo! Don’t touch him, he’s the only one we’ve got,” the convicts would shout, laughing.
“Aie, Jew, you’ll get the whip, you’ll be sent to Siberia.”
“Why, I am in Siberia now."
“Well, you’ll go further.”
“And is the Lord God there, too?”
“Well, I suppose he is.”
“Well, I don’t mind then. If the Lord God is there and there’s money, I shall be all right everywhere.”
“Bravo, Isay Fomitch, you are a fine chap, no mistake! the convicts shouted round him, and, though Isay Fomitch saw they were laughing at him, he was not cast down.
The general approval afforded him unmistakable pleasure and he began carolling a shrill little chant “la-la-la-la-la” all over the prison, an absurd and ridiculous tune without words, the only tune he hummed all the years he was in prison. Afterwards, when he got to know me better, he protested on oath to me that that was the very song and the very tune that the six hundred thousand Jews, big and little, had sung as they crossed the Red Sea, and that it is ordained for every Jew to sing that song at the moment of triumph and victory over his enemies.
Every Friday evening convicts came to our ward from other parts of the prison on purpose to see Isay Fomitch celebrate his Sabbath. Isay Fomitch was so naively vain and boastful that this general interest gave him pleasure too. With pedantic and studied gravity he covered his little table in the corner, opened his book, lighted two candles and muttering some mysterious words began putting on his vestment. It was a parti-coloured shawl of woollen material which he kept carefully in his box. He tied phylacteries on both hands and tied some sort of wooden ark by means of a bandage on his head, right over his forehead, so that it looked like a ridiculous horn sprouting out of his forehead. Then the prayer began. He repeated it in a chant, uttered cries, spat on the floor, and turned round, making wild and absurd gesticulations. All this, of course, was part of the ceremony and there was nothing absurd or strange about it, but what was absurd was that Isay Fomitch seemed purposely to be playing a part before us, and made a show of his ritual. Suddenly he would hide his head in his hands and recite with sobs. The sobs grew louder and in a state of exhaustion and almost howling he would let his head crowned with the ark drop on the book; but suddenly in the middle of the most violent sobbing he would begin to laugh and chant in a voice broken with feeling and solemnity, and weak with bliss. “Isn’t he going it!” the convicts commented. I once asked Isay Fomitch what was the meaning of the sobs and then the sudden solemn transition to happiness and bliss. Isay Fomitch particularly liked such questions from me. He at once explained to me that the weeping and sobbng were aroused at the thought of the loss of Jerusalem, and that the ritual prescribed sobbing as violently as possible and beating the breast at the thought. But at the moment of the loudest sobbing, he, Isay Fomitch, was suddenly, as it were accidentally (the suddenness was also prescribed by the ritual), to remember that there is a prophecy of the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Then he must at once burst into joy, song, and laughter, and must repeat his prayers in such a way that his voice itself should express as much happiness as possible and his face should express all the solemnity and dignity of which it was capable. This sudden transition and the obligation to make it were a source of extreme pleasure to Isay Fomitch: he saw in it a very subtle künst-stück, and boastfully told me of this difficult rule. Once when the prayer was in full swing the major came into the ward accompanied by the officer on duty and the sentries. All the convicts drew themselves up by the bed, Isay Fomitch alone began shouting and carrying on more than ever. He knew that the prayer was not prohibited, it was impossible to interrupt it, and, of course, there was no risk in his shouting before the major. But he particularly enjoyed making a display before the major and showing off before us. The major went up within a step of him. Isay Fomitch turned with his back to his table and waving his hands began chanting his solemn prophecy right in the major’s face. As it was prescribed for him to express extreme happiness and dignity in his face at that moment, he did so immediately, screwing up his eyes in a peculiar way, laughing and nodding his head at the major. The major was surprised but finally went off into a guffaw, called him a fool to his face and walked away, and Isay Fomitch vociferated louder than ever. An hour later when he was having supper I asked him, “and what if the major in his foolishness had flown into a rage?”
“What major?”
“What major! Why, didn’t you see him?”
“No.”
“Why, he stood not a yard away from you, just facing you.”
But Isay Fomitch began earnestly assuring me that he had not seen the major and that at the time, during the prayer, he was usually in such a state of ecstasy that he saw nothing and heard nothing of what was going on around him.
I can see Isay Fomitch before me now as he used to wander about the prison on Saturdays with nothing to do, making tremendous efforts to do nothing at all, as prescribed by the law of the Sabbath. What incredible anecdotes he used to tell me every time he came back from the synagogue! What prodigious news and rumours from Petersburg he used to bring me, assuring me that he had got them from his fellow Jews, and that they had them first-hand.
But I have said too much of Isay Fomitch.
There were only two public baths in the town. One of these which was kept by a Jew consisted of separate bathrooms, for each of which a fee of fifty kopecks was charged. It was an establishment for people of the higher class. The other bath-house was intended for the working class; it was dilapidated, dirty and small, and it was to this house that we convicts were taken. It was frosty and sunny, and the convicts were delighted at the very fact of getting out of the fortress grounds and looking at the town. The jokes and laughter never flagged all the way. A whole platoon of soldiers with loaded rifles accompanied us, to the admiration of the whole town. In the bath-house we were immediately divided into two relays: the second relay had to wait in the cold anteroom while the first were washing themselves. This division was necessary, because the bath-house was so small. But the space was so limited that it was difficult to imagine how even half of our number could find room. Yet Petrov did not desert me; he skipped up of his own accord to help, and even offered to wash me. Another convict who offered me his services was Baklushin, a prisoner in the "special division" who was nicknamed "the pioneer," and to whom I have referred already as one of the liveliest and most charming of the convicts, as indeed he was. I was already slightly acquainted with him. Petrov even helped me to undress, for not being used to it, I was slow undressing, and it was cold in the anteroom, almost as cold as in the open air.
It is, by the way, very difficult for a convict to undress till he has quite mastered the art. To begin with one has to learn how to unlace quickly the bands under the ankle irons. These bands are made of leather, are eight inches in length and are put on over the undergarment, just under the ring that goes round the ankle. A pair of these bands costs no less than sixty kopecks and yet every convict procures them, at his own expense of course, for it is impossible to walk without them. The ring does not fit tightly on the leg, one can put one’s finger in between, so that the iron strikes against the flesh and rubs it, and without the leather a convict would rub his leg into a sore in a day. But to get off the bands is not difficult. It is more difficult to learn how to get off one’s underlinen from under the fetters. It is quite a special art. Drawing off the undergarment from the left leg, for instance, one has first to pull it down between the ring and the leg, then freeing one’s foot one has to draw the linen up again between the leg and the ring; then the whole of the left leg of the garment has to be slipped through the ring on the right ankle, and pulled back again. One has to go through the same business when one puts on clean linen. It is hard for a novice even to guess how it can be done; I was first taught how to do it at Tobolsk by a convict called Korenev, who had been the chief of a band of robbers and had been for five years chained to the wall. But the convicts get used to it, and go through the operation without the slightest difficulty.
I gave Petrov a few kopecks to get me soap and a handful of tow; soap was, indeed, served out to the convicts, a piece each, the size of a halfpenny and as thick as the slices of cheese served at the beginning of supper among middle-class people. Soap was sold in the anteroom as well as hot spiced mead, rolls and hot water. By contract with the keeper of the bath-house, each convict was allowed only one bucketful of hot water; every one who wanted to wash himself cleaner could get for a half-penny another bucketful, which was passed from the anteroom into the bathroom through a little window made on purpose. When he had undressed me, Petrov took me by the arm, noticing that it was very difficult for me to walk in fetters.“You must pull them higher, on to your calves,” he kept repeating, supporting me as though he were my nurse, “and now be careful, here’s a step.”
I felt a little ashamed, indeed; I wanted to assure Petrov that I could walk alone, but he would not have believed it. He treated me exactly like a child not able to manage alone, whom every one ought to help. Petrov was far from being a servant, he was pre-eminently not a servant; if I had offended him, he would have known how to deal with me. I had not promised him payment for his services, and he did not ask for it himself. What induced him then to look after me in this way?
When we opened the door into the bathroom itself, I thought we were entering hell. Imagine a room twelve paces long and the same in breadth; in which perhaps as many as a hundred and certainly as many as eighty were packed at once, for the whole party were divided into only two relays, and we were close on two hundred; steam blinding one’s eyes; filth and grime; such a crowd that there was not room to put one’s foot down. I was frightened and tried to step back, but Petrov at once encouraged me. With extreme difficulty we somehow forced our way to the benches round the wall, stepping over the heads of those who were sitting on the floor, asking them to duck to let us get by. But every place on the benches was taken. Petrov informed me that one had to buy a place and at once entered into negotiations with a convict sitting near the window. For a kopeck the latter gave up his place, receiving the money at once from Petrov who had the coin ready in his fist, having providently brought it with him into the bathroom. The convict I had ousted at once ducked under the bench just under my place, where it was dark and filthy, and the dirty slime lay two inches thick. But even the space under the benches was all filled; there, too, the place was alive with human beings. There was not a spot on the floor as big as the palm of your hand where there was not a convict squatting, splashing from his bucket. Others stood up among them and holding their buckets in their hands washed themselves standing; the dirty water trickled off them on to the shaven heads of the convicts sitting below them. On the top shelf and on all the steps leading up to it, men were crouched, huddled together washing themselves. But they did not wash themselves much. Men of the peasant class don’t wash much with soap and hot water. they only steam themselves terribly and then douche themselves with cold water—that is their whole idea of a bath. Fifty birches were rising and falling rhythmically on the shelves; they all thrashed themselves into a state of stupefaction. More steam was raised every moment. It was not heat; it was hell. All were shouting and vociferating to the accompaniment of a hundred chains clanking on the floor. . . . Some of them, wanting to pass, got entangled in other men’s chains and caught in their own chains the heads of those below them; they fell down, swore, and dragged those they caught after them. Liquid filth ran in all directions. Every one seemed in a sort of intoxicated, over-excited condition; there were shrieks and cries. By the window of the anteroom from which the water was handed out there was swearing, crowding, and a regular scuffle. The fresh hot water was spilt over the heads of those who were sitting on the floor before it reached its destination. Now and then the moustached face of a soldier with a gun in his hand peeped in at the window or the half-open door to see whether there were anything wrong. The shaven heads and crimson steaming bodies of the convicts seemed more hideous than ever. As a rule the steaming backs of the convicts show distinctly the scars of the blows or lashes they have received in the past, so that all those backs looked now as though freshly wounded. The scars were horrible! A shiver ran down me at the sight of them. They pour more boiling water on the hot bricks and clouds of thick, hot steam fill the whole bath-house; they all laugh and shout. Through the cloud of steam one gets glimpses of scarred backs, shaven heads, bent arms and legs; and to complete the picture Isay Fomitch is shouting with laughter on the very top shelf. He is steaming himself into a state of unconsciousness, but no degree of heat seems to satisfy him; for a kopeck he has hired a man to beat him, but the latter is exhausted at last, flings down his birch and runs off to douche himself with cold water. Isay Fomitch is not discouraged and hires another and a third; he is resolved on such an occasion to disregard expense and hires even a fifth man to wield the birch. “He knows how to steam himself, bravo, Isay Fomitch!” the convicts shout to him from below. Isay Fomitch for his part feels that at the moment he is superior to every one and has outdone them all; he is triumphant, and in a shrill crazy voice screams out his tune “la-la-la-la-la,” which rises above all the other voices. It occurred to me that if one day we should all be in hell together it would be very much like this place. I could not help expressing this thought to Petrov; he merely looked round and said nothing.
I wanted to buy him, too, a place beside me, but he sat down at my feet and declared that he was very comfortable. Meantime Baklushin was buying us water and brought it as we wanted it. Petrov declared that he would wash me from head to foot, “so that you will be all nice and clean,” and he urged me to be steamed. This I did not venture on. Petrov soaped me all over. “And now I’ll wash your little feet,” he added in conclusion. I wanted to reply that I could wash them myself, but I did not contradict him and gave myself into his hands completely. There was not the faintest note of servility about the expression “little feet”; it was simply that Petrov could not call my feet simply feet, probably because other real people had feet, while mine were “little feet.”
After having washed me he led me back to the anteroom with the same ceremonies, that is giving me the same support and warnings at every step, as though I were made of china. Then he helped me to put on my linen, and only when he had quite finished with me, he rushed back to the bathroom to steam himself.
When we got home I offered him a glass of tea. Tea he did not refuse; he emptied the glass and thanked me. I thought I would be lavish and treat him to a glass of vodka. This was forthcoming in our ward. Petrov was extremely pleased, he drank it, cleared his throat and observing that I had quite revived him, hurried off to the kitchen as though there were something there that could not be settled without him. His place was taken by another visitor, Baklushin “the pioneer,” whom I had invited to have tea with me before we left the bath-house.
I don’t know a more charming character than Baklushin’s. It was true that he would not knock under to anyone; indeed, he often quarrelled, he did not like people to meddle with his affairs—in short he knew how to take his own part. But he never quarrelled for long, and I believe we all liked him. Wherever he went every one met him with pleasure. He was known even in the town as the most amusing fellow in the world who was always in high spirits. He was a tall fellow of thirty with a good-natured and spirited countenance, rather good-looking, though he had a wart on his face. He could contort his features in a killing way, mimicking anyone he came across, so that no one near him could help laughing. He, too, belonged to the class of comic men, but he would not be sat upon by those who despised and detested laughter, so they never abused him for being a “foolish and useless” person. He was full of fire and life. He made my acquaintance during my first days and told me that he was a kantonist and had afterwards served in the pioneers, and had even been noticed and favoured by some great personages, a fact which he still remembered with great pride. He began at once questioning me about Petersburg. He even used to read. When he came to have tea with me he at once entertained the whole ward by describing what a dressing down Lieutenant S. had given the major that morning, and sitting down beside me, he told me with a look of pleasure that the theatricals would probably come off. They were getting up theatricals in the prison for Christmas. Actors had been discovered, and scenery was being got ready by degrees. Some people in the town had promised to lend dresses for the actors, even for the female characters; they positively hoped by the assistance of an orderly to obtain an officer’s uniform with epaulettes. If only the major did not take it into his head to forbid it, as he did last year. But last Christmas he had been in a bad temper: he had lost at cards somewhere, and, besides, there had been mischief in the prison, so he had forbidden it out of spite; but now perhaps he would not want to hinder it. In short, Baklushin was excited. It was evident that he was one of the most active in getting up the performance, and I inwardly resolved on the spot that I would certainly be present. Baklushin’s simple-hearted delight that everything was going well with the theatricals pleased me. Little by little, we got into talk. Among other things he told me that he had not always served in Petersburg; that he had been guilty of some misdemeanour there and had been transferred to R., though as a sergeant in a garrison regiment.
“It was from there I was sent here,” observed Baklushin.
“But what for?” I asked.
“What for? What do you think it was for, Alexandr Petrovitch? Because I fell in love.”
“Oh well, they don’t send people here for that yet,” I retorted laughing.
“It is true,” Baklushin added, “it’s true that through that I shot a German there with my pistol. But was the German worth sending me here for, tell me that!”
“But how was it? Tell me, it’s interesting.”“It’s a very funny story, Alexandr Petrovitch.”
“So much the better. Tell me.”
“Shall I? Well, listen then.”
I heard a strange though not altogether amusing story of a murder.
“This is how it was,” Baklushin began. “When I was sent to R. I saw it was a fine big town, only there were a lot of Germans in it. Well, of course I was a young man then, I stood well with the officers; I used to pass the time walking about with my cap on one side, winking at the German girls. And one little German girl, Luise, took my fancy. They were both laundresses, only doing the finest work, she and her aunt. Her aunt was a stuck-up old thing and they were well off. I used to walk up and down outside their windows at first, and then I got to be real friends with her. Luise spoke Russian well too, she only lisped a little, as it were—she was such a darling, I never met one like her. . . . I was for being too free at first, but she said to me, ‘No, you mustn’t, Sasha, for I want to keep all my innocence to make you a good wife,’ and she’d only caress me and laugh like a bell . . . and she was such a clean little thing, I never saw anyone like her. She suggested our getting married herself. Now, could I help marrying her, tell me that? So I made up my mind to go to the lieutenant-colonel for permission. . . . One day I noticed Luise did not turn up at our meeting-place, and again a second time she didn’t come, and again a third. I sent a letter; no answer. What is it? I wondered. If she had been deceiving me she would have contrived somehow, have answered the letter, and have come to meet me. But she did not know how to tell a lie, so she simply cut it off. It’s her aunt, I thought. I didn’t dare go to the aunt’s; though she knew it, we always met on the quiet. I went about as though I were crazy; I wrote her a last letter and said, ‘If you don’t come I shall come to your aunt’s myself. She was frightened and came. She cried; she told me that a German called Schultz, a distant relation, a watch-maker, well-off and elderly, had expressed a desire to marry her to make me happy,’ he says, and not to be left without a wife in his old age; and he loves me, he says, and he’s had the idea in his mind for a long time, but he kept putting it off and saying nothing. ‘You see, Sasha,’ she said, ‘he’s rich and it’s a fortunate thing for me; surely you don’t want to deprive me of my good fortune?’ I looked at her—she was crying and hugging me. . . . ‘Ech,’ I thought, ‘she is talking sense! What’s the use of marrying a soldier, even though I am a sergeant?’ ‘Well, Luise,’ said I, ‘good-bye, God be with you. I’ve no business to hinder your happiness. Tell me, is he good-looking?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘he is an old man, with a long nose,’ and she laughed herself. I left her. Well,’ I thought, it was not fated to be!’ The next morning I walked by his shop; she had told me the street. I looked in at the window: there was a German sitting there mending a watch, a man of forty-five with a hooked nose and goggle eyes, wearing a tail-coat and a high stand-up collar, such a solemn-looking fellow. I fairly cursed; I should like to have broken his window on the spot . . . but there, I thought, it’s no good touching him, it’s no good crying over spilt milk! I went home to the barracks at dusk, lay down on my bed and would you believe it, Alexandr Petrovitch, I burst out crying. . . .
“Well, that day passed, and another and a third. I did not see Luise. And meantime I heard from a friend (she was an old lady, another laundress whom Luise sometimes went to see) that the German knew of our love, and that was why he made up his mind to propose at once, or else he would have waited another two or three years. He had made Luise promise, it seemed, that she would not see me again; and that so far he was, it seems, rather churlish with both of them, Luise and her aunt; as though he might change his mind and had not quite decided even now. She told me, too, that the day after to-morrow, Sunday, he had invited them both to have coffee with him in the morning and that there would be another relation there, an old man who had been a merchant but was very poor now and served as a caretaker in a basement. When I knew that maybe on Sunday everything would be settled, I was seized with such fury that I did not know what I was doing. And all that day and all the next I could do nothing but think of it. I felt I could eat that German.
“On Sunday morning I did not know what I would do, but when the mass was over I jumped up, put on my overcoat and set off to the German’s. I thought I would find them all there. And why I went to the German’s, and what I meant to say, I did not know myself. But I put a pistol in my pocket to be ready for anything. I had a wretched little pistol with an old-fashioned trigger; I used to fire it as a boy. It wasn’t fit to be used. But I put a bullet in it: I thought if they try turning me out and being rude I’ll pull out the pistol and frighten them all.’ I got there, there was no one in the shop, they were all sitting in the backroom. And not a soul but themselves, no servant. He had only one, a German cook. I walked through the shop and saw the door was shut, but it was an old door, fastening with a hook. My heart beat; I stood still and listened they were talking German. I kicked the door with all my might and it opened. I saw the table was laid. On the table there was a big coffee-pot and the coffee was boiling on a spirit lamp. There were biscuits; on another tray a decanter of vodka, herring and sausage, and another bottle with wine of some sort. Luise and her aunt were sitting on the sofa dressed in their best; on a chair opposite them the German, her suitor, with his hair combed, in a tail-coat and a stand-up collar sticking out in front. And in another chair at the side sat another German, a fat grey-headed old man who did not say a word. When I went in Luise turned white. The aunt started up but sat down again, and the German frowned, looking so cross, and got up to meet me.
“‘What do you want?’ said he. I was a bit abashed, but I was in such a rage. “What do I want! Why, you might welcome a visitor and give him a drink. I’ve come to see you.’
“The German thought a minute and said, ‘Sit you.’
“I sat down. "Well, give me some vodka,’ I said.
“Here’s some vodka,’ he said, ‘drink it, pray.’ "Give me some good vodka,’ said I. I was in an awful rage, you know.
“‘It is good vodka.’
“I felt insulted that he treated me as though I were of no account, and above all with Luise looking on. I drank it off and said:
“‘What do you want to be rude for, German? You must make friends with me. I’ve come to you as a friend.’
“‘I cannot with you be friend,’ said he, ‘you are a simple soldier.’
“Then I flew into a fury.
“‘Ah, you scarecrow,’ I said, ‘you sausage-eater! But you know that from this moment I can do anything I like with you? Would you like me to shoot you with my pistol?’
“I pulled out my pistol, stood before him and put the muzzle straight at his head. The women sat more dead than alive, afraid to stir; the old man was trembling like a leaf, he turned pale and didn’t say a word.“The German was surprised but he pulled himself together.
“‘I do not fear you,’ said he, ‘and I beg you as an honourable man to drop your joke at once and I do not fear you.’
“‘That’s a lie,’ said I, ‘you do I’
“Why, he did not dare to move his head away, he just sat there.
“‘No,’ said he, ‘you that will never dare.’
“‘Why don’t I dare?’ said I.
“‘Because,’ said he, ‘that is you strictly forbidden and for that they will you strictly punish.’
“The devil only knows what that fool of a German was after. If he hadn’t egged me on he’d have been living to this day. It all came from our disputing.
“‘So I daren’t, you think?’
“‘No.’
“‘I daren’t?’
“‘To treat me so you will never dare.’
“‘Well, there then, sausage!’ I went bang and he rolled off his chair. The women screamed.
“I put the pistol in my pocket and made off, and as I was going into the fortress I threw the pistol into the nettles at the gate.
“I went home, lay down on my bed and thought: They’ll come and take me directly.’ One hour passed and then another—they did not take me. And when it got dark, such misery came over me; I went out; I wanted to see Luise, whatever happened. I went by the watchmaker’s shop. There was a crowd there and police. I went to my old friend: Fetch Luise!’ said I. I waited a little and then I saw Luise, running up. She threw herself on my neck and cried, ‘It’s all my fault,’ said she, ‘for listening to my aunt.’ She told me that her aunt had gone straight home after what happened that morning and was so frightened that she was taken ill, and said nothing. ‘She’s told no one herself and she’s forbidden me to,’ says she. ‘She is afraid and feels “let them do what they like.” No one saw us this morning,’ said Luise. He had sent his servant away too, for he was afraid of her. She would have scratched his eyes out, if she had known that he meant to get married. There were none of the workmen in the house either, he had sent them all out. He prepared the coffee himself and got lunch ready. And the relation had been silent all his life, he never used to say anything and when it had all happened that morning, he picked up his hat and was the first to go. ‘And no doubt he will go on being silent,’ said Luise. So it was. For a fortnight no one came to take me and no one had any suspicion of me. That fortnight, though you mayn’t believe it, Alexandr Petrovitch, was the happiest time in my life. Every day I met Luise. And how tender, how tender she grew to me! She would cry and say, ‘I’ll follow you wherever they send you, I’ll leave everything for you!’ It was almost more than I could bear, she wrung my heart so. Well, and within a fortnight they took me. The old man and the aunt came to an understanding and gave information against me. . . .”
“But excuse me,” I interrupted, “for that they could not have given you more than ten or twelve years at the utmost in the civil division, but you are in the special division. How can that be?”
“Oh, that is a different matter,” said Baklushin. “When I was brought to the court the captain swore at me with nasty words before the court. I couldn’t control myself and said to him, ‘What are you swearing for? Don’t you see you are in a court of justice, you scoundrel!’ Well, that gave a new turn to things, they tried me again and for everything together they condemned me to four thousand blows and sent me here in the special, division. And when they brought me out for punishment, they brought out the captain too: me to walk down the green street,’ and him to be deprived of his rank and sent to serve as a soldier in the Caucasus. Good-bye, Alexandr Petrovitch. Come and see our performance.”