The House of the Dead/Part 2/Chapter 9
Soon after our major was removed, there were fundamental changes in our prison. They gave up using the place as a prison for penal servitude convicts and founded instead a convict battalion, on the pattern of the Russian disciplinary battalions. This meant that no more convicts of the second class were brought to our prison. It began to be filled at this time only with convicts of the military division, men therefore not deprived of civil rights, soldiers like all other soldiers except that they were undergoing punishment in the prison for brief terms, six years at the utmost. At the expiration of their sentence they would go back to their battalions as privates, just as before. Those, however, who came back to the prison after a second offence were punished as before by a sentence of twenty years. There had been, indeed, even before this change a division of convicts of the military class, but they lived with us because there was no other place for them. Now the whole prison became a prison for this military section. The old convicts, genuine civil convicts, who had been deprived of all rights, had been branded, and shaved on one side of the head, remained of course in the prison till their full terms were completed. No new ones came, and those who remained gradually worked out their terms of servitude and went away, so that ten years later there could not have been a convict left in our prison. The special division was left, however, and to it from time to time were sent convicts of the military class who had committed serious crimes and they were kept there till certain penal works were established in Siberia. So in reality life went on for us as before, the same conditions, the same food and almost the same regulations, but the officers in command were different and more numerous. A staff officer was appointed, a commander of the battalion and four superior officers who were on duty in the prison in turns. The veterans, too, were abolished and twelve sergeants and a quartermaster were appointed. The prisoners were divided into tens and corporals were appointed from the convicts themselves, nominally, of course, and Akim Akimitch at once became a corporal. All these new institutions and the whole prison, with its officials and convicts, were as before left under the control of the governor of the prison as the highest authority. That was all that happened.
The convicts were, of course, very much excited at first; they talked, guessed and tried to read the characters of their commanders, but, when they saw that in reality everything went on as before, they calmed down and our life went on in its old way. But the great thing was that we were all saved from the old major; every one seemed to breathe freely and to be more confident. They lost their panic-stricken air; all knew now that in case of need one could have things out with the authorities and that the innocent would not be punished for the guilty except by mistake. Vodka was sold just as before and on the same system, although instead of the veterans we had sergeants. These sergeants turned out to be for the most part a good sort of sensible men who understood their position. Some of them, however, at first showed an inclination to domineer, and of course in their inexperience thought they could treat the convicts like soldiers, but soon even these realized the position. Those who were too slow in understanding had it pointed out to them by the convicts. There were some sharp encounters; for instance, they would tempt a sergeant and make him drunk, and afterwards point out to him, in their own fashion, of course, that he had drunk with them, and consequently. . . . It ended in the sergeants looking on unconcerned, or rather trying not to see, when vodka was brought in in bladders and sold. What is more, they went to the market as the veterans had done before and brought the convicts rolls, beef, and all the rest of it, that is, anything that was not too outrageous. Why all these changes were made, why convict battalions were formed, I don’t know. It happened during my last years in prison. But I had two years to spend under these new regulations.
Shall I describe all that life, all my years in prison? I don’t think so. If I were to describe in order, in succession, all that happened and all that I saw and experienced in those years, I might have written three times, four times as many chapters as I have. But such a description would necessarily become too monotonous. All the incidents would be too much in the same key, especially if, from the chapters already written, the reader has succeeded in forming a fairly satisfactory conception of prison life in the second division. I wanted to give a vivid and concrete picture of our prison and of all that I lived through in those years. Whether I have attained my object I don’t know. And, indeed, it is not quite for me to judge of it. But I am convinced that I can end my story here. Besides, I am sometimes depressed by these memories myself. And I can hardly recollect everything. The later years have somehow been effaced from my memory. Many circumstances, I am quite sure, I have entirely forgotten. I remember that all those years, which were so much alike, passed drearily, miserably. I remember that those long wearisome days were monotonous, as drops of water trickling from the roof after rain. I remember that nothing but the passionate desire to rise up again, to be renewed, to begin a new life, gave me the strength to wait and to hope. And at last I mastered myself; I looked forward, and I reckoned off every day, and, although a thousand remained, I took pleasure in ticking them off one by one. I saw the day off; I buried it, and I rejoiced at the coming of another day, because there were not a thousand left but nine hundred and ninety-nine days. I remember that all that time, though I had hundreds of companions, I was fearfully lonely, and at last I grew fond of that loneliness. In my spiritual solitude I reviewed all my past life, went over it all to the smallest detail, brooded over my past, judged myself sternly and relentlessly, and even sometimes blessed fate for sending me this solitude, without which I could not have judged myself like this, nor have reviewed my past life so sternly. And what hopes set my heart throbbing in those days! I believed, I resolved, I swore to myself that in my future life there should be none of the mistakes and lapses there had been in the past. I sketched out a programme for myself for the whole future, and I firmly resolved to keep to it. The blind faith that I should and could keep these resolutions rose up in my heart again. I looked forward eagerly to freedom, I prayed for it to come quickly; I longed to test myself again in fresh strife. At times I was overcome by nervous impatience. But it hurts me to recall now my spiritual condition at that time. Of course all that concerns no one but me. But I have written all this because I think every one will understand it, for the same thing must happen to every one, if he is sent to prison for a term of years in the flower of his youth and strength.
But why talk of it? I had better describe something else that I may not end too abruptly.
It occurs to me that some one may ask, was it really impossible for anyone to escape from prison, and did no one escape in all those years? As I have said already, a prisoner who has spent two or three years in prison begins to attach a value to those years and cannot help coming to the conclusion that it is better to serve the rest of his time without trouble and risk and leave the prison finally in the legal way as a “settler.” But this conclusion can only occur to a convict who has been sentenced to a brief term. The man with many years before him might well be ready to risk anything. But somehow this did not often happen in our prison. I don’t know whether it was that they were very cowardly, whether the supervision was particularly strict and military, whether the situation of our town in the open steppes was in many ways unfavourable; it is hard to say. I imagine all these considerations had their influence. Certainly it was rather difficult to escape from us. And yet one such case did happen in my time; two convicts ventured on the attempt and those two were among the most important criminals.
After the major had gone, A. (the convict who had played the spy for him in the prison) was left quite friendless and unprotected. He was still young, but his character had grown stronger and steadier as he grew older. He was altogether a bold, resolute and even very intelligent man. Though he would have gone on spying and making his living in all sorts of underhand ways if he had been given his freedom, he would not have been caught so stupidly and imprudently as before and have paid so dearly for his folly. While he was in prison, he practised making false passports a little. I cannot speak with certainty about this, however. But I was told so by the convicts. It was said that he used to work in that line at the time when he frequented the major’s kitchen and of course he picked up all he could there. In short he was capable of anything “to change his luck.” I had an opportunity of reading his character and seeing to some extent into his mind; cynicism in him reached a pitch of revolting impudence and cold mockery, and it excited an invincible repugnance. I believe that, if he had had a great desire for a glass of vodka and if he could not have got it except by murdering some one, he would certainly have committed the murder, if he could only have done it in secret so that no one could discover it. In prison he learnt prudence. And this man caught the attention of Kulikov, a convict in the special division.
I have already spoken of Kulikov. He was a man no longer young, but passionate, vital, vigorous, with great and varied abilities. There was strength in him and he still had a longing for life. Such men feel the same thirst for life up to extreme old age. And if I had wondered why none of the convicts escaped from the prison, the first I should have thought of would have been Kulikov. But Kulikov made up his mind at last. Which of them had the most influence on the other—A. on Kulikov or Kulikov on A.—I do not know, but they were a match for one another and well suited for such an enterprise. They became friends. I fancy Kulikov reckoned on A.’s preparing the passports. A. was a “gentleman,” had belonged to good society; that promised something different from the usual adventures, if only they could get to Russia. Who can tell how they came to an agreement and what hopes they had? But it is certain that they were hoping for something very different from the usual routine of tramping in Siberia. Kulikov was an actor by nature; he could play many and varied parts in life; he might hope for many things, at least for a great variety of things. Prison must weigh heavily on such men. They agreed to escape.
But it was impossible to escape without the help of a guard. They had to persuade a guard to join them. In one of the battalions stationed in the fortress there was a Pole, a man of energy, deserving perhaps of a better fate; he was middle-aged and serious, but he was a fine, spirited fellow. In his youth, soon after he had come as a soldier to Siberia, he had deserted from intense home-sickness. He was caught, punished and kept for two years in a disciplinary battalion. When he was sent back to serve as an ordinary soldier again, he thought better of it and began to be zealous and to do his best in his work. For distinguished service he was made a corporal. He was an ambitious, self-reliant man who knew his own value. He spoke and looked like a man who knows his own value. I met him several times during those years among our guards. The Poles too, had spoken of him to me. It seemed to me that his home-sickness had turned to a hidden, dumb, unchanging hatred. This man was capable of doing anything and Kulikov was right in choosing him as a comrade. His name was Koller.
They agreed and fixed on a day. It was in the hot days of June. The climate was fairly equable in our town; in the summer there was hot settled weather, and that just suited tramps. Of course they could not set off straight from the fortress; the whole town stands on rising ground open on all sides. There was no forest for a long distance round. They had to change into ordinary dress, and to do this they had first to get to the edge of the town, where there was a house that Kulikov had long frequented. I do not know whether his friends there were fully in the secret. One must suppose that they were, though the point was not fully established when the case was tried afterwards. That year in a secluded nook at the edge of the town a very prepossessing young woman, nicknamed Vanka-Tanka, who showed great promise and to some extent fulfilled it later on, was just beginning her career. Another nickname for her was Fire. I believe she, too, had some share in the escape. Kulikov had been spending lavishly upon her a whole year.
Our heroes went out as usual into the prison yard in the morning and cleverly succeeded in being sent with Shilkin, a convict who made stoves and did plastering, to plaster the empty barracks, which the soldiers had left some time before to go into camp. A. and Kulikov went with Shilkin to act as porters. Koller turned up as one of the guards, and as two guards were required for three convicts, Koller, as an old soldier and a corporal, was readily entrusted with a young recruit that he might train him and teach him his duties. Our fugitives must have had great influence on Koller and he must have had great confidence in them, since after his lengthy and in latter years successful service, clever, prudent, sensible man as he was, he made up his mind to follow them.
They came to the barracks. It was six o’clock in the morning. There was no one there except them. After working for an hour, Kulikov and A. said to Shilkin that they were going to the workshop to see some one and to get some tool, which it seemed they had come without. They had to manage cleverly, that is, as naturally as possible, with Shilkin. He was a Moscow stove-maker, shrewd, clever, full of dodges, and sparing of his words. He was frail and wasted-looking. He ought to have been always wearing a waistcoat and a dressing-gown in the Moscow fashion, but fate had decreed otherwise, and after long wanderings he was settled for good in our prison in the special division, that is, in the class of the most dangerous military criminals. How he had deserved such a fate I don’t know, but I never noticed any sign of special dissatisfaction in him; he behaved peaceably and equably, only sometimes got as drunk as a cobbler, but even then he behaved decently. He was certainly not in the secret and his eyes were sharp. Kulikov, of course, winked to him signifying that they were going to get vodka, of which a store had been got ready in the workshop the day before. That touched Shilkin; he parted from them without any suspicion and remained alone with the recruit, while A., Kulikov and Koller set off for the edge of the town.
Half an hour passed; the absent men did not return and at last, on reflection, Shilkin began to have his doubts. He had seen a good deal in his day. He began to remember things. Kulikov had been in a peculiar humour, A. had seemed to whisper to him twice, anyway Kulikov had twice winked to him, he had seen that; now he remembered it all. There was something odd about Koller, too, as he went away with them; he had begun lecturing the recruit as to how he was to behave in his absence, and that was somehow not quite natural, in Koller, at least. In fact the more Shilkin thought about it, the more suspicious he became. Meanwhile time was getting on, they did not come back, and his uneasiness became extreme. He realized thoroughly his position and his own danger; the authorities might turn their suspicions upon him. They might think that he let his comrades go knowingly and had an understanding with them, and if he delayed to give notice of the disappearance of A. and Kulikov, there would seem to be more grounds for suspicion. There was no time to lose. At that point he recollected that Kulikov and A. had been particularly thick of late, had often been whispering, and had often been walking together behind the prison out of sight of every one. He remembered that even at the time he had thought something about them. He looked searchingly at his guard; the latter was leaning on his gun, yawning and very innocently picking his nose. So Shilkin did not deign to communicate his suspicions to him, but simply told him that he must follow him to the engineer’s workshop. He had to ask whether they had been there. But it appeared that no one had seen them there. Shilkin’s last doubts were dissipated. “They might have simply gone to drink and have a spree at the edge of the town, as Kulikov sometimes did,” thought Shilkin, “but no, that could hardly be it. They would have told him, they would not have thought it worth while to conceal that from him.” Shilkin left his work and, without returning to the barracks, he went straight off to the prison.
It was almost nine o’clock when he presented himself before the chief sergeant and informed him of what had happened. The sergeant was aghast and at first was unwilling to believe it. Shilkin, of course, told him all this simply as a guess, a suspicion. The sergeant rushed off to the commanding officer, and the latter at once informed the governor of the prison. Within a quarter of an hour all the necessary steps had been taken. The Governor-General was informed. The criminals were important ones, and there might be serious trouble from Petersburg on their account. Correctly or not, A. was reckoned a political prisoner; Kulikov was in the special division, that is, a criminal of the first magnitude and a military one, too. There had never been an instance of a prisoner’s escaping from the special division before. It was incidentally recalled that every convict of the special division should be escorted to work by two guards, or, at the least, have one each. This rule had not been observed. So it looked an unpleasant business. Messengers were sent to all the villages through all the surrounding country to announce the escape of the fugitives and to leave their description everywhere. Cossacks were sent out to overtake and catch them; neighbouring districts and provinces were written to. The authorities were in a great panic, in fact.
Meanwhile there was excitement of a different sort in prison. As the convicts came in from work, they learnt at once what had happened. The news flew round to all. Every one received it with extraordinary secret joy. It set every heart throbbing. Besides breaking the monotony of prison life and upsetting the ant-hill, an escape and such an escape appealed to something akin in every heart and touched on long-forgotten chords; something like hope, daring, the possibility of “changing their luck” stirred in every soul. “Men have escaped, it seems, why then . . .?” And at this thought every one plucked up his spirit and looked defiantly at his mates. At any rate, they all seemed suddenly proud and began looking condescendingly at the sergeants. Of course the authorities swooped down on the prison at once. The governor of the prison came himself. Our convicts were in high spirits, and they looked bold, even rather contemptuous, and had a sort of silent stern dignity, as though to say, “We know how to manage things.” Of course they had foreseen at once that all the authorities would visit the prison. They foresaw, too, that there would be a search and got everything hidden in readiness for it. They knew that the authorities on such occasions are always wise after the event. And so it turned out; there was a great fuss, everything was turned upside down, everything was searched and nothing was found, of course. The convicts were sent out to their afternoon work and escorted by a larger number of guards. Towards evening the sentries looked into the prison every minute; the men were called over an extra time and mistakes in the counting were made twice as often as usual. This led to further confusion; all the men were sent out into the yard and counted over again. Then there was another counting over in the prison wards. There was a great deal of fuss.
But the convicts were not in the least disturbed. They all looked extremely independent and, as is always the case on such occasions, behaved with extraordinary decorum all that evening, as though to say, “There’s nothing you can find fault with.” The authorities, of course, wondered whether the fugitives had not left accomplices in prison and gave orders that the convicts should be watched and spied upon. But the convicts only laughed. “As though one would leave accomplices behind one in a job of that sort!” “A thing of that sort is done on the quiet and nohow else!” “And as though a man like Kulikov, a man like A. would leave traces in an affair like that! They’ve managed in a masterly way, every sign hidden; they’re men who’ve seen a thing or two; they’d get through locked doors!”
In fact the glory of Kulikov and A. was vastly increased; every one was proud of them. The convicts felt that their exploit would be handed down to the remotest generation of convicts, would outlive the prison.
“They’re master-hands!” some would say.
“You see, it was thought there was no escaping from here. They’ve escaped, though,” others added.
“Escaped!” a third would pronounce, looking round with an air of some authority. “But who is it has escaped? The likes of you, do you suppose?”
Another time the convict to whom this question referred would certainly have taken up the challenge and defended his honour, but now he was modestly silent, reflecting: “Yes, really, we are not all like Kulikov and A.; we must show what we can do before we talk.”
“And why do we go on living here, after all, brother?” said a fourth, breaking the silence. He was sitting modestly at the kitchen window with his cheek propped on his hand. He spoke in a rather sing-song voice, full of sentimental but secretly complacent feeling. “What are we here for? We are not alive though we are living and we are not in our graves though we are dead. E-e-ch!”.
“It’s not a shoe, you can’t cast it off. What’s the use of saying ‘e-e-ch’?”
“But you see, Kulikov . . .” a green youth, one of the impulsive sort, tried to interpose.
“Kulikov!” Another cut him short at once, cocking his eye contemptuously at the green youth. “Kulikov!”
This was as much as to say, Are there many Kulikovs here?”“And A. too, lads, he is a cute one, oh, he is a cute one!”
“Rather! He could turn even Kulikov round his finger! You won’t catch him!”
“I wonder whether they’ve got far by now, lads? I should like to know.”
At once there followed a discussion of whether they had gone far, and in what direction they had gone, and where it would have been best for them to go, and which district was nearer. There were people who knew the surrounding country; they were listened to with interest. They talked of the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages and decided that they were not people to rely upon. They were too near a town to be simple. They wouldn’t help a convict, they’d catch him and hand him over.
“The peasants hereabouts are a spiteful set, mates, that they are!”
“There’s no depending on them!”
“They’re Siberians, the beggars. If they come across you, they’ll kill you.”
“Well, but our fellows . . .”
“To be sure there’s no saying which will get the best of it. Our men are not easy customers either.”
“Well, we shall hear if we live long enough.”
“Why, do you think they’ll catch them?”
“I don’t believe they’ll ever catch them!” another of the enthusiasts pronounces, banging the table with his fist.
“H’m! That’s all a matter of luck.”
“And I tell you what I think, lads,” Skuratov breaks in, “if I were a tramp, they’d never catch me.”
“You!”
There is laughter, though some pretend not to want to listen. But there is no stopping Skuratov.
“Not if I know it!” he goes on vigorously. “I often think about it and wonder at myself, lads. I believe I’d creep through any chink before they catch me.”
“No fear! You’d get hungry and go to a peasant for bread.”
General laughter.
“For bread? Nonsense!”
“But why are you wagging your tongue? Uncle Vasya and you killed the cow plague[1]. That’s why you came here.”The laughter was louder than ever. The serious ones looked on with even greater indignation.
“That’s nonsense!” shouted Skuratov. “That’s a fib of Mikita’s, and it’s not about me, but Vaska, and they’ve mixed me up in it. I’m a Moscow man and I was brought up to tramping from a child. When the deacon was teaching me to read, he used to pull me by the ear and make me repeat, ‘Lead me not into temptation in Thy infinite mercy,’ and soon I used to repeat, ‘lead me to the police station in Thy infinite mercy,’ and so on. So that’s how I used to go on from my childhood up.”
Every one burst out laughing again. But that was all Skuratov wanted. He could not resist playing the fool. Soon the convicts left him and fell to serious conversation again. It was mainly the old men, authorities on such affairs, who gave their opinions. The younger and humbler prisoners looked on in silent enjoyment and craned their heads forward to listen. A great crowd gathered in the kitchen; there were, of course, no sergeants present. They would not have spoken freely before them.
Among those who were particularly delighted, I noticed a Tatar, called Mametka, a short man with high cheek bones, an extremely comic figure. He could hardly speak Russian at all and could hardly understand anything of what was said, but he, too, was craning his head forward out of the crowd and listening, listening with relish.
“Well, Mametka, yakshee?”[2] Skuratov, abandoned by all and not knowing what to do with himself, fastened upon him. “Yakshee, oh, yakshee!” Mametka muttered in great animation, nodding his ridiculous head to Skuratov. “Yakshee!”
“They won’t catch them, yok?”
“Yok, yok!” and Mametka began babbling, gesticulating as well.
“So you lie, me not understand, eh?”
“Yes, yes, yakshee,” Mametka assented, nodding.
“Yakshee to be sure!” and Skuratov, giving the Tatar’s cap a tweak that sent it over his eyes, went out of the kitchen in the best of spirits, leaving Mametka somewhat perplexed.
For a whole week there was strict discipline in the prison, and search and pursuit were kept up vigorously in the neighbourhood. I don’t know how, but the convicts got immediate and accurate information of the manoeuvres of the police outside the prison. The first few days the news was all favourable to the fugitives; there was no sight or sound of them, every trace was lost. The convicts only laughed. All anxiety as to the fate of the runaways was over. “They won’t find anything, they won’t catch anyone,” was repeated in prison with complacency.
“Nothing. They’ve gone like a shot.”
“Good-bye, don’t cry, back by-and-by.” It was known in prison that all the peasants in the neighbourhood had been roused. All suspicious places, all the woods and ravines were being watched.
“Foolishness!” said the convicts, laughing. “They must have some friend they are staying with now.”
“No doubt they have,” said the others. “They are not fools; they would have got everything ready beforehand.”
They went further than this in their suppositions; they began to say that the runaways were still perhaps in the outskirts of the town, living somewhere in a cellar till the excitement was over and their hair had grown, that they would stay there six months or a year and then go on.
Every one, in fact, was inclined to romance. But, suddenly, eight days after the escape there was a rumour that a clue had been found. This absurd rumour was, of course, rejected at once with contempt. But the same evening the rumour was confirmed. The convicts began to be uneasy. The next morning it was said in the town that they had been caught and were being brought back. In the afternoon further details were learnt; they had been caught about fifty miles away, at a certain village. At last a definite piece of news was received. A corporal returning from the major stated positively that they would be brought that evening straight to the guard-house. There was no possibility of doubt. It is hard to describe the effect this news had on the convicts. At first they all seemed angry, then they were depressed. Then attempts at irony were apparent. There were jeers, not now at the pursuers, but at the captives, at first from a few, then from almost all, except some earnest and resolute men who thought for themselves and who could not be turned by taunts. They looked with contempt at the shallowness of the majority and said nothing.
In fact they ran Kulikov and A. down now, enjoyed running them down as much as they had crying them up before. It was as though the runaways had done them all some injury. The convicts, with a contemptuous air, repeated that the fugitives had been very hungry, that they had not been able to stand, and had gone to a village to ask for bread from the peasants. This is the lowest depth of ignominy for a tramp. These stories were not true, however. The fugitives had been tracked; they had hidden in the forest; the forest had been surrounded by a cordon. Seeing that they had no hope of escape, they had surrendered. There was nothing else left for them to do.
But when in the evening they really were brought back by the gendarmes, their arms and legs tied, all the convicts trooped out to the fence to see what would be done with them. They saw nothing, of course, except the carriages of the major and the governor outside the guard-house. The runaways were put in a cell apart, fettered, and next day brought up for trial. The contempt and the jeers of the convicts soon passed off. They learnt more fully the circumstances, they found out that there was nothing for them to do but surrender, and all began following the course of the proceedings sympathetically.
“They’ll give them a thousand,” said some of them.
“A thousand, indeed!” said the others. “They’ll do for them. A. a thousand, perhaps, but Kulikov will be beaten to death, because he is in the special division.”
They were mistaken, however. A. got off with five hundred blows; his previous good behaviour and the fact that it was his first offence were taken into account. Kulikov, I believe, received fifteen hundred, but the punishment was administered rather mercifully. Like sensible men, the fugitives implicated no one else at the trial, gave clear and exact answers; they said they had run straight away from the fortress without staying anywhere in the town. I felt sorriest of all for Koller; he had lost everything, his last hopes; his sentence was the worst of all, I believe two thousand “sticks,” and he was sent away to another prison as a convict. Thanks to the doctors, A.’s punishment was light and humane, but he gave himself airs and talked loudly in the hospital of his being ready for anything, of his sticking at nothing now, and of doing something much more striking. Kulikov behaved as usual, that is, with dignity and decorum, and when he returned to prison after the punishment, he looked as though he had never left it. But the convicts looked at him differently; though Kulikov always and everywhere knew how to stand up for himself, the convicts had somehow inwardly ceased to respect him and began to treat him with more familiarity. In fact, from this time Kulikov’s glory greatly declined. Success means so much to men.