Notes from a Dead House

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  However, here I am now trying to sort our whole prison into categories; but is that possible? Reality is infinitely diverse compared to all, even the most clever, conclusions of abstract thought, and does not suffer sharp and big distinctions. Reality tends towards fragmentation. We, too, had our own particular life, of whatever sort, but at least we had it, and not only an official, but an inner life of our own.

  But, as I’ve already partly mentioned, I could not and did not even know how to penetrate to the inner depths of this life at the beginning of my time in prison, and therefore all its external manifestations tormented me with an inexpressible anguish. Sometimes I would simply begin to hate these men, who were sufferers the same as I was. I even envied them and blamed fate. I envied them for being in any case among their own kind, with comrades, and able to understand each other, though in fact they were all as sick of it as I was and loathed this comradeship under the lash and stick, this forced association, and each inwardly turned away from it all. I repeat again, this envy that visited me in moments of anger had its legitimate grounds. Indeed, they are decidedly wrong who say that for a nobleman, an educated man and so on, the hardship in our prisons and labor camps is exactly the same as for any muzhik. I know, I heard of that supposition just recently, I read about it. The grounds for this idea are just, humane. We’re all people, all human beings. But the idea is too abstract. It loses sight of a great many practical considerations that cannot be understood otherwise than in reality itself. I say this not because the noble and the educated supposedly feel things more refinedly, more painfully, because they are more developed. It is difficult to submit the soul and its development to any given standard. Even education itself is not a measure in this case. I will be the first to testify that in the most uneducated, in the most downtrodden milieu of these sufferers I have met with features of the most refined inner development. In prison it sometimes happened that you would know a man for several years and think he was a beast, not a man, and despise him. And suddenly a chance moment would come when his soul, on an involuntary impulse, would open up and you would see in it such riches, feeling, heart, such a clear understanding of his own and others’ suffering, as if your own eyes had been opened, and in the first moment you would not even believe what you saw and heard. The reverse also happens: education sometimes goes along with such barbarity, such cynicism, that you loathe it, and however kind or well-disposed you may be, you can find neither excuses nor justifications for it in your heart.

  I also say nothing about the change of habits, way of life, food, and so on, which for a man of a higher social stratum are, of course, harder than for a muzhik, who had often gone hungry in freedom, and in prison at least ate his fill. I will not argue about that either. Let’s suppose that, for a man of at least some strength of will, these are all trifles compared with other discomforts, though as a matter of fact the change of habits is not at all a minor and trifling thing. But there are inconveniences before which all this pales so much that you pay no attention either to the filthy surroundings, or to the constraints, or to the meager, sloppy food. The most clean-handed lordling, the softest softy, after working the whole day by the sweat of his brow, as he never worked in freedom, will eat coarse bread and soup with cockroaches. You can get used to that, too, as is mentioned in a comic prisoner’s song about a former lordling who lands in hard labor:

  They dole me out some soggy cabbage,

  And I just wolf it down.

  No, more important than all this is that every newcomer to prison, two hours after his arrival, becomes the same as all the others, at home, as rightfully a master in the prison association as any other. They all understand him, and he understands them all, is known to them all, and they all consider him one of theirs. Not so with a nobleman, a gentleman. No matter how fair, kind, intelligent he is, for years on end the whole mass of them will hate and despise him; they will not understand him and, above all, will not trust him. He is not a friend and not a comrade, and even if over the years he reaches a point where they no longer insult him, still he will never be one of them and will be eternally, painfully conscious of his estrangement and solitude. This estrangement sometimes happens without any malice on the part of the prisoners, but just so, unconsciously. He’s not one of us, that’s all. Nothing is more terrible than to live in a milieu that is not your own. A muzhik transferred from Taganrog to the port of Petropavlovsk will at once find there a Russian muzhik exactly like himself, and will at once fall in with him, and in a couple of hours they may well start living in the most peaceable fashion in the same cottage or hut. Not so for the noblemen. They are separated from simple people by the deepest abyss, and that can be fully noticed only when the nobleman suddenly, by force of external circumstances, is really in fact deprived of his former rights and turned into a simple man. Otherwise, though you may have to do with the people all your life, though you may come together with them for forty years on end, through the service, for instance, in conventional administrative forms, or even just so, in a friendly way, as a benefactor and in a certain sense a father—you will never know their real essence. It will all be an optical illusion, and nothing more. Oh, I know that everybody, decidedly everybody, reading my remarks will say I am exaggerating. But I am convinced that they are right. I became convinced of it, not through books, not by speculation, but in reality, and I had quite enough time to verify my conviction. Maybe later on everyone will come to know how true it is …

  Events, as if on purpose, confirmed my observations from the very first step and had a nervous and morbid effect on me. During that first summer, I wandered about the prison almost entirely alone. I have already said that my state of mind was such that I was even unable to appreciate and distinguish those convicts who were capable of liking me and who did like me later on, though we never came to be on an equal footing. There were comrades for me from the nobility, but this comradeship did not lift the whole burden from my soul. I couldn’t bear the sight of it all, yet there was no escape from it. Here, for instance, is one of those occasions which, right from the first, gave me to understand most fully my estrangement and the peculiarity of my position in the prison. Once, that same summer, already approaching August, on a clear and hot day, past noon, when everybody was resting as usual before the after-dinner work, the whole prison suddenly arose as one man and began to form up in the prison yard. I knew nothing about it until that very moment. In those days I was sometimes so absorbed in myself that I hardly noticed what was going on around me. And yet the prison had been in smoldering unrest for some three days already. That unrest may have begun much earlier, as I realized only afterwards, inadvertently recalling something from the prisoners’ talk, and along with that the increasing quarrelsomeness, gloominess, and especially the bitterness noticeable in them in recent days. I had ascribed it to the hard work, the long, boring summer days, involuntary dreams of the forests and the free life, the short nights when you couldn’t get enough sleep. Maybe it all came together now in one outburst, but the pretext for the outburst was the food. For several days recently there had been loud complaints, indignation in the barracks and especially when we came together in the kitchen for dinner and supper; they were displeased with the cooks, even tried to replace one of them, but immediately chased out the new one and brought back the old one. In short, everybody was in some sort of agitated state.

  “The work’s hard, and they feed us tripe,” somebody in the kitchen would start grumbling.

  “If you don’t like it, order blancmange,” another would pick up.

  “I really like shchi with tripe, brothers,” a third picks up. “It’s smacking good.”

  “And if they feed you the same tripe all the time, will it be smacking good?”

  “Now’s the time for meat, of course,” says a fourth. “We slave away at the brickyard; when your lesson’s over, you want to grub up. And what kind of food is tripe?”

  “And if it’s not tripe, it’s awful.”*1

&nbs
p; “Just take this awful, for instance. Tripe and awful, over and over again. Some food that is! Is it fair or isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, the feed’s bad.”

  “He must be lining his pocket.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “And whose is it, then? It’s my belly. The whole lot of us should make a grievance, that would do it.”

  “A grievance?”

  “Yes.”

  “As if you haven’t been thrashed enough for these grievances. Blockhead!”

  “That’s right,” another, who has been silent up to now, adds gruffly. “No hurry, no worry. What’ll you put into your grievance, tell us that first, big brain.”

  “All right, I’ll tell you. If everybody was to go, then I’d talk with everybody. Poverty, I mean. Some of us eat what’s their own, and some only sit down to prison food.”

  “What a sharp-eyed envier! Ogling other people’s goods!”

  “Don’t let your mouth lust for another man’s crust. The early to rise feast more than their eyes.”

  “More than their eyes!… I could haggle with you over it till my hair turns gray. So you’re a rich man, since you just sit there with folded arms?”

  “Rich Ignát has a dog and a cat.”

  “No, really, brothers, why just sit there? I mean, enough of putting up with their foolery. They’re skinning us alive. Why not go to them?”

  “Why not? Must be you want it all pre-chewed and put in your mouth; you must be used to eating it chewed. Because it’s prison—that’s why!”

  “So it comes down to: the people bleed, and the generals feed.”

  “That’s it. Eight-eyes has grown fat. Bought himself a pair of grays.”

  “And he’s sure no lover of drink.”

  “The other day he had a fight with the veterinarian over cards.”

  “Trumped each other all night. Our man kept his fists at it for two hours. Fedka told me.”

  “That’s why we get shchi with awful.”

  “Ah, you fools! It’s not our business to stick our noses out.”

  “But let’s all go and see what he can say to justify himself. We’ll stand on it.”

  “Justify! He’ll punch you in the teeth, and that’ll be it.”

  “And take you to court, too …”

  In short, everybody was agitated. Our food was indeed bad at that time. And one thing was added to another. But the main thing was the general mood of anguish, the eternally suppressed suffering. Convicts are quarrelsome and rebellious by nature; but they rarely rebel all together or in a big group. The reason for that is eternal disagreement. Each of them felt it himself: that is why there was more bickering than doing among us. And yet this time the agitation did not go for nothing. They began to gather in groups, talked in the barracks, swore, angrily recalled our major’s whole administration, and tried to get to the bottom of it all. Some were particularly agitated. In any situation like that, instigators, ringleaders, always turn up. The ringleaders in such cases, that is, in cases of grievance, are generally quite remarkable people, and not only in prison, but in all associations, teams, and the like. They are a special type, everywhere alike. They are hotheaded people, yearning for justice, and, in the most naïve and honest way, convinced of its inevitable, indisputable, and, above all, immediate possibility. These people are not stupider than others, some of them are even very intelligent, but they are too hotheaded to be clever and calculating. In all these cases, if there are men who are able to guide the masses deftly and come out winners, they constitute another type of guide and natural leader of the people, a type extremely rare among us. But those I’m now talking about, the instigators and ringleaders of grievances, almost always come out losers and afterwards populate the prisons and labor camps. They lose because of their hotheadedness, but because of their hotheadedness they also have influence on the masses. In the end, people follow them eagerly. Their ardor and honest indignation affect everybody, and in the end even the most irresolute join them. Their blind confidence in success seduces even the most inveterate skeptics, though that confidence sometimes has such flimsy, childish foundations that an outsider might wonder how anyone could follow them. The main thing is that they march in the forefront, and march fearing nothing. They rush straight ahead like bulls, horns down, often without knowing what it’s about, without prudence, without that practical Jesuitism with which even the most mean and besmirched man sometimes wins the battle, achieves his goal, and comes out of the water dry. They inevitably break their horns. In ordinary life these people are bilious, peevish, short-tempered, and intolerant. Most often they are also terribly narrow-minded, which, however, partly constitutes their strength. The most vexing thing in them is that, instead of heading straight for the goal, they often rush off on a tangent, and instead of the main thing, end in trifles. And that’s what destroys them. But the masses understand them; in that lies their strength … However, a couple of words must be said about what is meant by a grievance …

  In our prison there were several men who had come there on account of grievances. They were the ones who were most agitated. Especially one, Martynov, who had formerly served as a hussar, a hotheaded, restless, and suspicious man, though an honest and truthful one. Another was Vassily Antonov, a man somehow cold-bloodedly irritable, with an insolent gaze, a haughty, sarcastic smile, extremely developed views, though also honest and truthful. But I cannot run through them all; there were many of them. Petrov, by the way, kept darting back and forth, listening to all the groups, spoke little, but was obviously agitated and was the first to rush out of the barrack when the lining up began.

  Our prison sergeant, who performed the duties of a sergeant major among us, came out at once in fright. Having lined up, the people politely asked him to tell the major that the convicts wished to talk to him and to make personal requests with regard to certain points. Following the sergeant, the invalids all came out and lined up on the other side opposite the convicts. The commission given to the sergeant was extraordinary and plunged him into terror. But he did not dare not to report to the major immediately. First, once the convicts had risen up, it could lead to something worse. Our authorities were all somehow intensely fearful of the convicts. Second, even if nothing came of it, if they all thought better of it and dispersed, then, too, the sergeant would immediately have to report everything that had happened to the authorities. Pale and trembling with fear, he hastened to the major without even trying to question and admonish the prisoners himself. He could see that they would not speak to him now.

  Knowing absolutely nothing, I, too, went out to line up. I learned all the details of the affair later. At the moment I thought some sort of roll call was going on; but, not seeing the guards who conducted the roll call, I was surprised and started looking around. The faces were agitated and annoyed. Some were even pale. Everyone in general was preoccupied and silent in anticipation of how they would have to talk to the major. I noticed that many of them looked at me with extreme astonishment, but silently turned away. They clearly found it strange that I lined up with them. They evidently did not believe that I should also present the grievance. Soon, however, almost everyone around me began to address me again. They all looked at me questioningly.