Notes from a Dead House

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  * * *

  *1 All that I am writing here about punishments and floggings was so in my time. Now I hear that it has all changed and is still changing. Author.

  *2 I.e., passports. Author. [Meaning “internal” passports, required of all Russian people moving from their registered place of residence. Translator.]

  *3 That is, in the forest, where the cuckoo sings. He means to say that they are also tramps. Author.

  IV

  Akulka’s Husband

  A STORY

  It was already late at night, past eleven o’clock. I had fallen asleep, but suddenly woke up. The dim little flame of the distant night-light barely lit up the ward … Almost everyone was asleep by then. Even Ustyantsev was asleep, and in the silence you could hear his heavy breathing and the phlegm wheezing in his throat with every breath. In the distance, in the entryway, the heavy footsteps of the approaching relief guard were suddenly heard. A rifle butt banged on the floor. The door opened; the corporal, stepping carefully, counted the patients. A moment later the ward was locked, a new sentry was posted, the guard moved off, and again the former silence. Only now did I notice that, not far away from me, to the left, two men were not asleep and seemed to be whispering to each other. This happened in the wards: sometimes men would lie next to each other for days and months without saying a word, and suddenly would somehow get to talking at an inviting hour of the night, and one would start laying out his whole past before the other.

  They had evidently been talking for a long time already. I hadn’t caught the beginning, nor could I make it all out now; but I gradually got used to it and began to understand everything. I couldn’t sleep; what else could I do but listen?… One was heatedly telling his story, half lying on the bed, his head raised and his neck stretched towards his comrade. He was obviously flushed, agitated; he wanted to tell his story. His listener, sullen and perfectly indifferent, was sitting up on his cot, his legs stretched out, occasionally mumbling something in reply or as a sign of sympathy for the storyteller, but as if more out of propriety than in reality, and filling his nose with snuff from a horn every other minute. This was the corrective-company soldier Cherevin, a man of about fifty, a sullen pedant, a cold reasoner, and a conceited fool. The storyteller, Shishkov, was still a young lad, under thirty, a civil convict, who worked in the tailor’s shop. I had paid little attention to him before then; and later, too, in the whole time of my prison life, I somehow never felt like taking an interest in him. He was an empty and crotchety man. Sometimes he was silent, lived sullenly, behaved rudely, didn’t talk for weeks. And sometimes he would suddenly get mixed up in some incident, start gossiping, get excited over trifles, shuttle between the barracks bearing news, telling tales, working himself up. He would get beaten and fall silent again. He was a cowardly and flimsy fellow. Everybody seemed to treat him with scorn. He was short, lean; his eyes were somehow restless, and sometimes as if dully pensive. Occasionally he told about something: he would start hotly, with ardor, even waving his arms—and suddenly break off, or turn to something else, get carried away by new details, and forget what he began with. He often railed at people, and when he did, he always reproached the man for something, for some sort of guilt before him, spoke with feeling, all but wept … He was rather good at playing the balalaika and liked playing it, and on holidays he even danced, and danced well, when he was made to … Making him do something was quick work … Not that he was all that obedient, but he liked to force his way into comradeship and to be obliging out of comradeship.

  For a long time I could not grasp what his story was about. It also seemed to me at first that he kept straying from his theme and getting sidetracked. He may have noticed that Cherevin could not have cared less about his story, but it seemed he wanted purposely to convince himself that his listener was all attention, and it might have pained him greatly if he had been convinced of the contrary.

  “… He’d go out to the market,” he continued, “everybody bows to him, does him honor—rich is the word.”

  “He was a merchant, you say?”

  “Yes, a merchant. The tradesmen among us were plain poor. Naked as could be. The women went to the riverside, outside town, to fetch water for their vegetable patches; they slogged and slogged, and come autumn they didn’t have enough for a cabbage soup. Ruination. Well, he had a big holding, kept hired men to work the land, three of them, and then again he had his beehives, dealt in honey and in cattle, too, so he was held in great respect in our parts. He was awful old, seventy, bones gone heavy, gray-haired, big as anything. He’d go out to the market in his fox-skin coat, and everybody’d honor him. They really felt it, I mean. ‘Greetings, dear Ankudim Trofimych!’ ‘And greetings to you,’ he’d say. He didn’t scorn anybody. ‘Long life to you, Ankudim Trofimych!’ ‘And how are you doing?’ he’d ask. ‘Oh, we’re doing all right, as soot is white. And you?’ ‘Well enough for all my sins,’ he says, ‘blowing smoke against the wind.’ ‘Long life to you, Ankudim Trofimych!’ He didn’t scorn anybody, you see, and when he spoke, his every word was as good as gold. He was read up on the scriptures, literate, always reading some holy book. He’d sit his old woman down in front of him: ‘Listen now, wife, and understand!’—and he’d start explaining. And this old woman wasn’t all that old, she was already his second wife, for the sake of children, I mean, because he’d had none by the first. Well, but by the second, by Marya Stepanovna, he had two sons not yet full-grown, the youngest, Vasya, begotten when he was sixty, plus Akulka, his daughter, the oldest of them all, who was eighteen.”

  “Your wife, is it?”

  “Hold on. To begin with it’s Filka Morozov who’ll do his bit. ‘Divvy up,’ he says to Ankudim. ‘Give me the whole four hundred roubles—am I your hired man or something? I don’t want to deal with you, and I don’t want to take your Akulka. I’m now going on a binge,’ he says. ‘My parents are dead now, so I’ll drink up the money and then get myself recruited as a soldier, and in ten years I’ll come back to you a field marshal.’ Ankudim gave him the money, that is, settled accounts with him for good—because his father and the old man had dealt on the same capital. ‘You’re done for,’ he says. And Filka says, ‘Well, maybe I’m done for and maybe I’m not, but with you, old graybeard, a man learns to sup milk from an awl. You want to economize on a split kopeck, you pick up all kinds of trash in case it might be good in your kasha. I spit on all that. You save and save, and dig your own grave. I’ve got character,’ he says. ‘And anyhow I won’t take your Akulka; I’ve already slept with her as it is …’

  “ ‘What?’ says Ankudim. ‘You dare to disgrace the honest daughter of an honest father? When did you sleep with her, you snake’s lard, you pike’s blood?’ And he was shaking all over. Filka told about it himself.

  “ ‘Not just me,’ I say, ‘I’ll make it so your Akulka won’t marry anybody now, nobody’ll take her, and Mikita Grigoryich won’t take her now, because now she’s dishonored. She and me have been going at it ever since fall. And I wouldn’t agree now for a hundred crayfish. Go on, try giving me a hundred crayfish on the spot—I won’t agree …’

  “And what a binge the fine lad gave us! The earth was groaning, the town was booming with it! He collected some chums, caroused for three months, squandered the whole pile of money. ‘Once I’ve gone through all the money,’ he’d say, ‘I’ll throw in the house, I’ll throw in everything, and then either get myself recruited or go and become a tramp!’ He was drunk from morning till night, and drove around in a carriage and pair with little bells. And the girls were awfully fond of him. He played the torban1 very well.”

  “So he and Akulka had dealings even before?”

  “Wait, hold on. I had also buried my father by then, and my mother baked gingerbread, we worked for Ankudim, and that’s what fed us. It was a wretched life. Well, we also had a little plot beyond the woods, sowed wheat on it, but after my father that all ended, because I also went on a binge, brother. I used to beat money out of my m
other …”

  “That’s not good, to beat her. It’s a great sin.”

  “I used to be drunk, brother, from morning till night. Our house was still so-so, passable, a bit rotten, but ours, though you could go chasing hares in it. We used to sit hungry for whole weeks, chewing on a rag. My mother used to harp and carp at me; but what did I care!… I never left Filka Morozov’s side then, brother. Was with him from morning till night. ‘Play the guitar for me and dance,’ he says, ‘and I’ll lie here and throw money at you, because I’m the most rich man!’ And what didn’t he do! He only didn’t take stolen goods: ‘I’m not a thief,’ he says, ‘I’m an honest man.’ ‘Let’s go,’ he says, ‘and smear tar on Akulka’s gate;2 because I don’t want Akulka to marry Mikita Grigoryich. That’s dearer to me now than custard,’ he says. The old man had wanted to marry the girl off to Mikita Grigoryich even before. Mikita was also an old man, a widower, went around in spectacles, doing deals. As soon as he heard there were rumors about Akulka, he backed out: ‘It would be a great dishonor to me, Ankudim Trofimych,’ he says, ‘and, besides, I don’t wish to marry in my old age.’ So we tarred Akulka’s gate. How they thrashed her, how they thrashed her for that at home … Marya Stepanovna shouted: ‘I’ll skin you alive!’ And the old man: ‘In the old days, under the honorable patriarchs, I’d have chopped her up and burned her,’ he says, ‘but now there’s darkness and corruption in the world.’ The neighbors all down the street could hear Akulka howling away: they whipped her from morning till night. And Filka shouts to the whole market: ‘There’s this fine wench Akulka, we share a bottle. You walk bright, you dress in white, tell me who you’ll love tonight? I’ll shove it in their noses,’ he says, ‘they’ll remember.’ At that time I once ran into Akulka carrying water buckets and called out: ‘Greetings, Akulina Kudimovna! I salute Your Ladyship, you walk bright, you live so free, write down the good man’s name for me!’—that’s all I said; and she just looked at me, she had such big eyes, and herself grown thin as a sliver. As she was looking at me, her mother thought she was having a laugh with me and shouted from the gateway: ‘What are you grinning for, you shameless hussy!’—and that same day she thrashed her again. She used to thrash her for a whole solid hour. ‘I’ll whip the daylights out of her,’ she’d say, ‘because she’s no daughter of mine anymore.’ ”

  “Meaning she was a wanton.”

  “You just listen, uncle. So me and Filka kept on drinking then, and my mother comes to me, and I’m lying there: ‘What are you doing, you scoundrel, lying there?’ she says. ‘You filthy robber,’ she says. She scolded me, I mean. ‘Get married,’ she says, ‘get married to that Akulka. They’ll be so glad to give her to you now, they’ll give you three hundred roubles in cash.’ I say to her: ‘But now she’s dishonored before the whole world.’ ‘You’re a fool,’ she says. ‘Marriage covers up everything; it’s even better if she comes out guilty before you for her whole life. And we could set ourselves up with that money,’ she says. ‘I’ve already talked with Marya Stepanovna. She heard me out.’ And I say, ‘I want twenty roubles in cash on the table, then I’ll marry her.’ And, believe it or not, I was dead drunk right up to the wedding. And here again Filka Morozov threatened me: ‘You, Akulka’s husband, I’m going to break all the ribs in you, and, if I like, I’ll sleep with your wife every night.’ And I say: ‘You’re lying, dog’s-meat!’ And then he shamed me up and down the street. I came running home: ‘I don’t want to get married,’ I say, ‘unless they lay out another fifty roubles on the spot!’ ”

  “And they gave her to you?”

  “To me? Why not? We weren’t dishonorable. My father was ruined only towards the end on account of a fire, but before that we lived richer than them. Ankudim says to me: ‘You’re naked beggars.’ And I answer: ‘So they didn’t put enough tar on your gate?’ And he says to me: ‘Why go bullying us? Prove she’s dishonored, we can’t gag every mouth. God’s here, the doorway’s there,’ he says, ‘don’t take her. Only give back the money you took.’ Then me and Filka decided to send Mitry Bykov to tell him I was going to dishonor him now before the whole world, and right up to the wedding, brother, I was dead drunk. I only sobered up to get married. When they brought us back from the church, they sat us down, and Mitrofan Stepanych, her uncle, that is, said: ‘Though it’s without honor, it’s solid. The deed’s done, and there’s an end to it.’ The old man, Ankudim, was also drunk and began to cry—sat there with tears running down his beard. Well, brother, here’s what I did then: I put a whip in my pocket, I’d prepared it before the wedding, and figured I’d have some fun now with Akulka, teach her to go getting married by dishonest trickery, and let people know I didn’t take her like a fool …”

  “That’s it! Meaning so she feels it in the future …”

  “No, uncle, you just keep still. In our parts they take you to a separate room right after the wedding, and meanwhile go on drinking. So they left me and Akulka in the room. She sat there so white, not a drop of blood in her face. She was scared, I mean. Her hair was also as white as flax. She had big eyes. And she used to be silent all the time, not a peep out of her, as if a mute girl was living in the house. Really strange. And what might you think of this, brother: I had the whip ready and laid it there by the bed, but it turned out, brother mine, that she wasn’t guilty of anything before me.”

  “You don’t say!”

  “Not of anything; as honest a girl as could be, from an honest house. But in that case, brother, why had she suffered such torments? Why had Filka Morozov dishonored her before the whole world?”

  “Right.”

  “I got down on my knees to her then, right there by the bed, clasped my hands, and said: ‘Akulina Kudimovna, dearest, forgive me, I’m a fool that I also took you for that kind of woman. Forgive me,’ I say, ‘I’m a scoundrel!’ She sits before me on the bed, looks at me, puts both hands on my shoulders, laughs, and at the same time the tears are flowing; she cries and laughs … Then I went out to them all: ‘Well,’ I say, ‘let me meet Filka Morozov now—and he won’t be long for the world!’ And the old folk don’t know who to pray to: her mother all but fell at her feet, howling. And the old man said: ‘If only we’d known, my beloved daughter, this is not the sort of husband we’d have found for you.’ And how we went to church together the first Sunday—me in an astrakhan hat, a fine broadcloth kaftan, velveteen balloon trousers; her in a new hare-skin coat, a silk kerchief—that is, me worthy of her, and her worthy of me: that’s how we went! People admire us: I’m what I am, and Akulinushka, though she can’t be praised above others, also can’t be put down, she’s in the first ten …”

  “Well, good.”

  “Well, listen now. The day after the wedding, though I was drunk, I escaped from the guests; I got out and went running to the market, shouting: ‘Give me that do-nothing Filka Morozov, give him here, the scoundrel!’ Well, but then I was drunk; so three men took me by force near the Vlasovs’ house and brought me home. And talk went around town. The girls in the market talk among themselves: ‘Girlies, smarties, you know what? Akulka turned out honest!’ A little while later Filka says to me in front of people: ‘Sell your wife—you’ll get drunk. There’s this soldier here, Yashka,’ he says, ‘he got married just for that: didn’t sleep with his wife, but stayed drunk for three years instead.’ I say to him: ‘You’re a scoundrel!’ ‘And you,’ he says, ‘are a fool. You were drunk when you got married. What could you understand about these things?’ I came home and shouted: ‘You married me off drunk!’ My mother fell upon me. ‘Your ears are stuffed with gold, mother,’ I say. ‘Give me Akulka!’ So I start whacking her around. I whacked her, brother, whacked her, for two hours I whacked her, till my legs gave out under me. For three weeks she didn’t get out of bed.”

  “Of course,” Cherevin observed phlegmatically, “if you don’t beat ’em, they’ll … But did you catch her with her lover?”

  “No, I didn’t catch her,” Shishkov remarked after a pause and as if with e
ffort. “But it hurt me a lot, people kept teasing me, and Filka was the ringleader of it all. ‘Your wife’s no slattern,’ he says, ‘she’s a perfect pattern.’ He invited us as guests; here’s what he came out with: ‘His spouse is a merciful soul, noble, polite, well-mannered, good in every way, that’s how it is for him now! And have you forgotten, my lad, how you yourself smeared her gate with tar?’ I was sitting there drunk, and he just grabbed me right then by the hair, grabbed me, bent me down: ‘Dance,’ he says, ‘Akulka’s husband, I’m going to hold you by the hair like this, and you dance for my entertainment!’ ‘You scoundrel, you!’ I shout. And he says to me: ‘I’ll come to you with my chums and flog your wife Akulka with birches right in front of you as much as I like.’ After that, believe it or not, I was afraid to leave the house for a whole month: he’ll come and dishonor me, I thought. And on account of that I started beating her …”