Notes from a Dead House

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  Of course, even in prison some don’t become submissive so soon. They still maintain a certain swagger, a certain boastfulness: as if to say, Look, I’m not what you think, I “did in six souls.” But in the end he becomes submissive all the same. Only sometimes he amuses himself, recalling his wild fling, his once-in-a-lifetime binge, when he was “desperate,” and he loves it when he finds some simpleton and can play-act before him with the proper seriousness, boasting and telling him of his exploits, though without letting it be seen that he himself wants to tell about them. As if to say, See what sort of a man I was!

  And with what refinement this touchy caution is observed, how lazily negligent such a story can sometimes be! What studied foppishness shows in the tone, in the storyteller’s every word! Where do these people learn it!?

  Once during those first days, on a long evening, lying idle and anguished on my bunk, I listened to one of these stories and, in my inexperience, took the storyteller for some colossal, horrible villain, for an unheard-of iron-willed character, while at the same time I all but made fun of Petrov. The theme of the story was how he, Luka Kuzmich, for nothing else but his own pleasure, had packed away a major. This Luka Kuzmich was that same small, skinny, sharp-nosed young prisoner in our barrack, a Ukrainian, of whom I have already made some mention. He was, in fact, a Russian, but born in the south, a house serf, I think. There actually was something sharp and insolent in him: “Small bird, sharp claw.” But prisoners instinctively figure a man out. He was shown very little respect, or, as they say in prison, “hisself was shown very little respect.” He was terribly vain. That evening he was sitting on the bunk sewing a shirt. Sewing linens was his trade. Next to him sat a dull and limited fellow, but a kind and gentle one, sturdy and tall, his neighbor on the bunk, the prisoner Kobylin. Luchka, being his neighbor, often quarreled with him and generally treated him with condescension, mockingly and despotically, which Kobylin, in his simple-mindedness, did not quite notice. He was knitting a woolen sock and listened indifferently to Luchka. The latter was telling his story rather loudly and clearly. He wanted everybody to hear it, though he tried to pretend, on the contrary, that he was telling it to Kobylin alone.

  “So, brother, they sent me away from our parts,” he began, poking with his needle, “to Ch—ov, for vagrancy, I mean.”1

  “When was that, long ago?” Kobylin asked.

  “It’ll be two years come pea harvest. Well, so we got to K—v, and they put me in prison there for a little while. I look: there are some twelve men locked up with me, all Ukrainians, tall, strong, hefty as bulls. And so peaceable: the food is bad, the major twists them around as suits his hawnor” (Luka deliberately distorted the word). “I sit there one day, two days: I see—they’re cowardly folk. ‘Why do you give the fool such an easy time of it?’ I say. ‘Just go and try talking to him!’—and they even grin at me. I say nothing.”

  “There was this funny Ukrainian there, brothers,” he added suddenly, abandoning Kobylin and addressing everyone in general. “He told how he was sentenced in court, and how he talked in court, and he cried his heart out; said he left his children behind, and his wife. And himself such a manly fellow, gray-haired, fat. ‘I says to him: no! But the devil’s son goes on writing, writing. Well, I says to myself, you can drop dead, and I’ll just watch! But the man goes on writing, writing, like a song!… And so my head rolled!’ Give me some thread, Vasya, this prison stuff’s rotten.”

  “From the market,” said Vasya, handing him the thread.

  “Ours from the tailor’s shop is better. The other day we sent Ninvalid, he must’ve bought it from some vile wench,” Luchka went on, threading the needle against the light.

  “Must be a sweetie of his.”

  “Must be.”

  “So what about that major?” the completely forgotten Kobylin asked.

  That was just what Luchka wanted. But he did not go on with his story at once, and even seemed to pay no attention to Kobylin. He calmly smoothed out the thread, calmly and lazily shifted his legs under him, and then finally began:

  “I finally stirred up my Ukrainians, and they demanded to see the major. That morning I had already asked my neighbor for a sharper,*1 took and hid it—just in case, I mean. The major was furious. He came. ‘Well,’ I say, ‘don’t chicken out, lads.’ But their hearts were already in their heels; they were shaking all over. The major came running in, drunk. ‘Who’s this! What’s this! I’m the tsar, I’m God!’

  “When he said, ‘I’m the tsar, I’m God,’ I stepped forward,” Luchka went on, “the knife up my sleeve.”

  “ ‘No, Your Honor,’ I say, gradually getting closer and closer to him, ‘how can it be, Your Honor,’ I say, ‘that you’re our tsar and God?’

  “ ‘Ah, so it’s you, is it?’ the major shouted. ‘You’re the rebel!’

  “ ‘No,’ I say (getting closer and closer), ‘no, Your Honor, as may be known to you, our God is one, almighty and ever-present,’ I say. ‘And our tsar is one, set over us all by God himself. He is a monarch, Your Honor. And you, Your Honor,’ I say, ‘are still only a major—our superior, Your Honor, by the tsar’s mercy and your own merits.’

  “ ‘Wha-wha-wha-wha-at!’ He just clucked, he couldn’t speak, he was choking. He was very amazed.

  “ ‘Here’s what,’ I say, and I suddenly made a rush for him and stuck the whole knife right into his stomach. It was a skillful job. He rolled over and only jerked his legs a little. I threw down the knife.

  “ ‘There, lads,’ I say, ‘pick him up now!’ ”

  …

  Here I will make a digression. Unfortunately, the expression “I’m the tsar, I’m God” and many others like them were much in use among many commanders in the old days. It must be admitted, however, that there are not many such commanders left, perhaps none at all. I will also note that the ones who especially flaunted and liked to flaunt such phrases were mostly commanders who had risen from the ranks themselves. Officer’s rank seems to churn up all their insides, and their heads as well. Having long groaned in harness and gone through all the degrees of subordination, they suddenly see themselves officers, commanders, ennobled, and being unaccustomed and in that first intoxication, they exaggerate the notion of their power and significance—naturally, only in relation to the lower ranks subordinate to them. Towards the higher ranks they are still as servile as before, which is totally unnecessary and even disgusts many of their superiors. Some of these servile ones even hasten with particular feeling to show their superior officers that, though they are officers themselves, they come from the lower ranks and “always remember their place.” But with regard to the lower ranks they turn into all but absolute monarchs. Now, of course, it is unlikely that any such officers exist and that any could be found who would shout “I’m the tsar, I’m God.” But, despite that, I will still note that nothing so irritates prisoners, and all the lower ranks in general, as such phrases from their superiors. This brazen self-aggrandizement, this exaggerated opinion of their impunity, provokes hatred in the most obedient man and drives him out of all patience. Fortunately, this is almost entirely a thing of the past, and even in the old days was severely prosecuted by the authorities. I know several instances of it.

  And in general the lower ranks are irritated by any supercilious negligence, any disdain in their treatment. Some think, for instance, that if the prisoners are well fed, well kept, treated according to the law, the matter ends there. That is also a mistake. Every man, whoever he may be and however humiliated, still requires, even if instinctively, even if unconsciously, respect for his human dignity. The prisoner himself knows that he is a prisoner, an outcast, and he knows his place before his superior; but no brands, no fetters will make him forget that he is a human being. And since he is in fact a human being, it follows that he must be treated as a human being. My God! Humane treatment may make a human being even of someone in whom the image of God has faded long ago.2 These “unfortunates” need to be treated all the more
humanely. That is their salvation and their joy. I have met such kind, noble commanders. I have seen the effect they have had on these humiliated people. A few gentle words—and the prisoners all but resurrected morally. They rejoiced like children, and, like children, they began to love. I will note one more strange thing: the prisoners themselves do not like to be treated too familiarly and too kindly by their superiors. They want to respect their superior, and here they somehow cease to respect him. The prisoner likes it, for instance, that his superior has decorations, that he looks distinguished, that he is in favor with some still higher superior, that he is strict, and important, and just, and maintains his dignity. Prisoners like such an officer more: it means that he preserves his own dignity, and does not offend them, therefore everything is good and beautiful.

  “They must have given you a hot time for that,” Kobylin remarked calmly.

  “Hm. A hot time, brother, it was hot all right. Alei, hand me the scissors! What, brothers, no maidan today?”

  “They drank up all their money,” Vasya observed. “If they hadn’t, there might have been.”

  “If! In Moscow they pay a hundred roubles for an ‘if,’ ” Luchka observed.

  “How many did they give you, Luchka, all in all?” Kobylin asked again.

  “A hundred and five, my good friend. And I’ll tell you, brothers, they all but killed me,” Luchka went on, abandoning Kobylin again. “Once they handed down the hundred and five, they drove me out in full dress. And I’d never tasted a whip before. Huge numbers of people poured out for it, the whole town came running: a robber’s going to be punished, a murderer, that is. They’re stupid, these people, there’s no telling how stupid. Timoshka*2 stripped me, laid me down, and shouted: ‘Hold on now, it stings!’ I wait for what’ll happen. So he smacks me once—I wanted to cry out, opened my mouth, but there was no cry in me. The voice wasn’t there. So he smacks me a second time, and believe it or not I didn’t hear them count two. And when I came to my senses, I heard them count seventeen. They took me off the rack four times for a half-hour rest, brothers, and poured water on me. I look at them all goggle-eyed and think, ‘I’m about to die …’ ”

  “But you didn’t?” Kobylin asked naïvely.

  Luchka looked him up and down with a highly contemptuous glance; guffaws were heard.

  “What a numbskull!”

  “Nothing upstairs,” observed Luchka, as if he regretted even having to talk to such a man.

  “Lacks brains,” Vasya clinched.

  Luchka had killed six people, but nobody in the prison was afraid of him, though it may have been his heart’s desire to be known as a horrible man …

  * * *

  *1 A knife. Author.

  *2 The executioner. Author.

  IX

  Isai Fomich. The Bathhouse. Baklushin’s Story

  Christmas was approaching. The prisoners were awaiting it with a sort of solemnity, and, looking at them, I also began to wait for something extraordinary. Four days before the holiday, we were taken to the bathhouse. In my time, especially in my first years, prisoners were rarely taken to the bathhouse. Everybody rejoiced and started getting ready. We were supposed to go after lunch, so there would be no work in the afternoon. The one who rejoiced and bustled about the most in our barrack was Isai Fomich Bumstein, a Jewish convict, whom I already mentioned in the fourth chapter of my story. He liked to steam himself to the point of stupefaction, of unconsciousness, and now, each time I happen to go through my old memories and remember our prison bathhouse (which is worthy of being remembered), the face of the most blessed and unforgettable Isai Fomich, my comrade at hard labor and neighbor in the barrack, appears before me. Lord, what a hilarious and droll man he was! I’ve already said a few words about his appearance: some fifty years old, puny, wrinkled, with terrible brand marks on his cheeks and forehead, skinny, weak, with a white chicken’s body. In the expression of his face you could see a constant, unwavering self-satisfaction and even bliss. It seems he was not at all sorry to have wound up at hard labor. Since he was a jeweler, and there was no jeweler in our town, he worked constantly for the gentry and the town officials just doing jewelry work. They paid him something all the same. He was not in want, he was even rich, but he saved his money and lent it on pledges and at interest to all the convicts. He owned a samovar, a good mattress, cups, a complete dinner set. The town’s Jews kept up an acquaintance with him and patronized him. On Saturdays he went under convoy to their prayer house in town (which was allowed by law), and lived in complete clover, though waiting impatiently for the end of his twelve-year term in order “to get marryet.” There was a most comical mixture in him of naïveté, stupidity, cunning, boldness, simple-mindedness, timidity, boastfulness, and insolence. I found it very odd that the convicts did not laugh at him at all, except to make little jokes just for the fun of it. Isai Fomich evidently served as a diversion and a permanent amusement for everybody. “He’s our only one, don’t lay a finger on Isai Fomich,” the prisoners said, and Isai Fomich, though he realized what was going on, was clearly proud of his significance, which the prisoners found very amusing. He arrived in prison in a hilarious fashion (before my time, but I was told about it). Suddenly one day, before evening, after work, the rumor spread through the prison that a Jew had been brought and was being shaved in the guardhouse and was about to come in. There was not a single Jew in our prison then. The prisoners waited impatiently for him and surrounded him at once as he came through the gate. The prison sergeant led him to the civilian barrack and pointed to a place on the bunk. In his hands Isai Fomich had a sack with the government things issued to him and his personal property. He laid down the sack, climbed onto the bunk, and sat with his legs tucked under, not daring to raise his eyes to anybody. There were sounds of laughter around him and prison jokes directed at his Jewish origin. Suddenly a young prisoner pushed his way through the crowd, carrying in his hands some very old, dirty, and tattered summer trousers, with prison foot rags on top of them. He sat next to Isai Fomich and slapped him on the shoulder.

  “Well, my dear friend, it’s six years I’ve been waiting here for you. Look, how much will you give me for these?”

  And he laid out before him the rags he had brought.

  Isai Fomich, who had been so timid when he entered the prison that he had not even dared raise his eyes to this crowd of mocking, disfigured, and terrible faces that had formed a tight ring around him, and had been so frightened that he had not managed to say a word, suddenly roused himself on seeing the pledge and quickly began to finger the rags. He even held them up to the light. Everybody waited for what he would say.

  “So, how’s about a silver rouble? They’re worth it!” the customer began, winking to Isai Fomich.

  “A silver rouble, never, but seven kopecks would do it.”

  These were the first words Isai Fomich uttered in prison. Everybody just rocked with laughter.

  “Seven! Well, give me seven, then; the luck’s on you! Watch out, take good care of that pledge; you’ll answer for it with your head.”

  “With three kopecks interest, it’ll be ten kopecks,” the Jew went on in a trembling and faltering voice, going to his pocket for the money and looking around fearfully at the prisoners. He was terribly frightened, but he did want to do the business.

  “What, three kopecks a year in interest?”

  “No, a month, not a year.”

  “You’re a tight-fisted one, Jew. What’s your name?”

  “Isai Fomitz.”

  “Well, Isai Fomich, you’ll go far with us here! Good-bye.”

  Isai Fomich looked the pledge over once more, folded it, and carefully put it into his sack, to the ongoing laughter of the prisoners.

  Everybody really even seemed to like him, and nobody offended him, though almost all of them owed him money. He himself was as inoffensive as a chicken, and, seeing the universal sympathy for him, even strutted a bit, but with such simple-hearted comicality that he was forgiven for it
at once. Luchka, who had known many Jews in his time, often teased him, not at all out of malice, but just so, for amusement, as people amuse themselves with a little dog, a parrot, a trained animal, and the like. Isai Fomich knew that very well, was not offended in the least, and joked back rather cleverly.

  “Hey, Jew, I’m gonna beat you!”

  “You give me one, and I’ll give you ten,” Isai Fomich retorts dashingly.

  “Mangy devil!”

  “So I’m mangy!”

  “Mangy Jew!”

  “So what if I am. I itch, but I’m rich. I’ve got money.”

  “You sold Christ.”

  “So you say.”

  “Bravo, Isai Fomich, fine fellow! Don’t lay a finger on him, he’s our only one!” the prisoners shout, laughing.

  “Hey, Jew, you’ll get the knout and go to Siberia.”

  “I’m already in Siberia.”

  “They’ll send you further.”

  “And is the Lord God there?”

  “That he is.”

  “Well, so what, then. As long as there’s God and money, it’s good anywhere.”

  “Fine fellow, Isai Fomich, what a fine fellow!” they cry out around him, and Isai Fomich, though he can see they’re laughing at him, is in good spirits; the general praise gives him visible pleasure, and he starts to sing in a high treble, for the whole barrack to hear: “La-la-la-la-la!”—a song without words, to some absurd and ridiculous tune, the only one he sang all the while he was in prison. Later, when he became more closely acquainted with me, he assured me under oath that it was the same song and the same tune that all six hundred thousand Jews, big and small, sang as they crossed the Red Sea,1 and that every Jew was supposed to sing it at the moment of triumph and victory over his enemies.