When I became desperate with silence and solitude of soul, I would make conversation with him. I longed to hear and to reply to human speech in any form; and the more filled with gall and hatred of our surroundings that speech had been, the more closely it would have been in sympathy with my wretched mood. But he never said much; he would continue quietly sizing his lanterns, and then begin to tell me some story of how he had taken part in a review of troops in 18-: their divisional commander was So-and-so, the manoeuvring was neatly performed, that there had been a change in the skirmisher’s system of signalling, and so on. It was all told in level imperturbable tones, like water falling drop by drop. He put no life into his descriptions, even when he told me of a sharp skirmish at which he had been present in the Caucasus, after which his sword was decorated with the Ribbon of St Anne. The only difference was that his voice became a little more measured and grave: he lowered his tone when he pronounced the words ‘St Anne,’ as though he were revealing a great secret. Then he remained silent for at least three minutes, looking solemn but not uttering a word.
During the whole of that first year there were moments when I felt only bitter hatred towards Akim Akimitch. I simply cannot say why, but at such times I would despairingly curse the fate which had set his bed next to mine, so close indeed that our heads nearly touched. An hour afterwards I deeply regretted such extravagance. It was, however, only during the first year of my confinement that these violent feelings overpowered me. As time went on, I got used to Akim Akimitch’s singular character, and was ashamed of my former explosions. I do not remember that he and I ever become involved in anything like an open quarrel.
Besides the three Russians of whom I have spoken, there were eight other noblemen in the prison while I was there. Some of them became close friends of mine. Even the best of them, however, were morbid, aloof, and intolerant to the very last degree, and with two of them I was obliged to discontinue all spoken intercourse. There were only three who had any education: Bski, Mtski, and the old manJski who had formerly been a professor of mathematics, an excellent fellow, but highly eccentric and of very narrow mental horizon in spite of his learning. Mtski and Bski were of a very different mould. Mtski and I were on the best of terms from the start. We never disagreed, but although I had the greatest respect for him, I never managed to become sincerely attached to him. He was sour, embittered, mistrustful, and most reserved. That tended to repel me; the man had a closed soul, closed against all the world, and he made one feel it. Indeed, I was so conscious of the fact that I may have judged him unfairly. After all, his character bore the stamp of nobility and strength. His ineradicable scepticism made him very reserved when in company, and he guarded his own droughts with extraordinary skill. Sceptic as he was, there was another and a reverse side to his nature, for in some respects he was a profound and unalterable believer, with unshakable faith and hope. In spite of his tact in dealing with others, he quarrelled openly with Bski and his friend Tski.
The first of these, Bski, was a man of poor health, tending to consumption, irascible, and of a weak, nervous disposition; but he was, for all that, a good and generous man. His nervous irritability made him capricious as a child; that kind of temperament was too much for me under those conditions, and I soon began to see as little as possible of Bski, though I never ceased to like him very much.
It was just the other way about with Mtski: with him I was always on easy terms, though I did not care for him at all.
When I began to avoid Bski, I had more or less to break also with Tski, of whom I spoke in the last chapter.
I much regretted that for, though not well educated, he had an excellent heart; a worthy, and deeply spiritual man. He loved and respected Bski, so much so that he regarded those who broke with his friend as personal enemies. He quarrelled with Mtski on account of Bski, and it was a long time before the breach was healed. All these people were as ill-humoured as they could be, tetchy and mistrustful, morally and physically hypersensitive. It is not to be wondered at; their situation was trying in the extreme, far more so than ours. They had been exiled and transported for ten or twelve years, and what made their imprisonment yet more difficult to endure was their rooted, ingrained prejudice, especially the unfortunate but insuperable disgust with which they viewed their fellow prisoners. In their eyes the poor fellows were no more than wild beasts, without a single quality that could be recognized as human. Everything in their previous careers and their present circumstances combined to produce this unhappy aversion.
Their life in jail was a perpetual torment. They were kindly and talkative with the Circassians, the Tartars, and Isaiah Fomitch; but for the other prisoners they had nothing but contempt and dislike. The only one for whom they had any respect was the aged Old Believer. Nevertheless, I never heard a single prisoner reproach them with their birth, their religious beliefs, or their convictions, as the Russian peasant so often does to persons of different condition, especially if they happen to be foreigners. The fact is, he cannot take a foreigner seriously: to him the foreigner seems no more than a grotesque figure of fun. The convicts manifested far more respect for the Polish nobles than for us Russians, but I don’t think the Poles cared one way or the other, or took any notice of the fact.
I spoke just now of Tski, and have something more to say of him. When he and B-ski were ordered from their first place of exile to our fortress, he carried his friend nearly the whole way. Bski was frail and in bad health: he became exhausted before they had accomplished half the first stage of the journey. They had first been banished to Ygorsk, where they lived in tolerable comfort and whereconditions were far less severe than with us. But in consequence of a correspondence with some exiles in another town-a quite innocent exchange of letters-it was decided to remove them to our jail, where they would be under more direct Government surveillance. Before their arrival M — tski
had been quite alone, and his sufferings in that first year of his banishment must have been terrible.
Jski was the old man, always deep in prayer, to whom I referred above. Most political prisoners were comparatively young men while Jski was at least fifty years old.
He was a worthy, gentlemanly fellow, if a little eccentric.
Tski and Bski detested him and never spoke to him;
they insisted that he was obstinate and troublesome beyond endurance, and I was obliged to admit the truth of their opinion. I believe that in prison-as in every place where men are obliged to live in one another’s company, whether they like it or not-quarrelling and personal hatreds are more common than under normal circumstances. Many causes contributed to those squabbles that were, alas! all too common.
Jski was really disagreeable and narrow-minded; not one of his companions was on good terms with him. He and I never came to open rupture, but we were never really friendly. I fancy that he was a good mathematician. One day he explained to me in his half-Russian, half-Polish jargon an astronomical system of his own invention. I have been told that he had written a work upon the subject, which the learned world had received with derision, and I believe his reason was partially deranged. He used sometimes to spend a whole day on his knees in prayer, which earned the convicts’ respect during the remainder of his imprisonment. He died in my presence after a very painful illness. He had won the esteem of the prisoners from the first moment of his arrival in consequence of an incident between the governor and himself. They had not been shaved once on the road from Ygorsk, and their hair and beards had grown very long by the time they met the governor. That worthy raged like a madman; he was wild with indignation at such a breach of discipline, though it was not their fault.
‘My God! Did you ever see anything like it?’ he roared. ‘They’re vagabonds, brigands!’
Jski knew very little Russian, and thought that he was asking them if they were brigands or vagabonds, so he answered:
‘We are political prisoners, not rogues and vagabonds.’
‘So-o-o! You mean impudence. Clod!’
howled the governor. ‘ To the guard-house with him. A hundred strokes of the rod, this instant, I say!’
They gave the old man his punishment. He lay flat on the ground under the strokes without the slightest resistance, kept his hand between his teeth, and bore it all without a murmur, without moving a muscle. Bski and Tski reached the jail while this was in progress. Mski was waiting for them at the principal gate, having heard of their arrival, and threw himself on their necks, although he had never seen them before. Utterly disgusted at the way the governor had received them, they told Mski all about the cruel business that had just occurred. Mski told me later that he was beside himself with rage when he heard it.
‘ I could not contain my wrath,’ he said, ‘ I shook as though with fever. I waited for Jski at the main gate, through which he would come from the guard-house after his punishment. The gate was opened, and there I saw Jski pass before me, his lips all white and trembling, his face pale as death. He looked neither to right nor left, but passed through the groups of convicts assembled in the courtyard-they knew a nobleman had just been flogged-entered the barrack-room, went straight to his place, and, without a word, dropped down on his knees in prayer. The prisoners were surprised and touched. When I saw that old man with his white hairs, who had left behind him a wife and children, kneeling and praying after that scandalous treatment, I fled from the barrack, and for a couple of hours felt as if I were stark, staring, raving mad, or blind drunk… From that first day the convicts showed a marked deference to and consideration for Jski.
What particularly pleased them was that he had not uttered a cry while undergoing his punishment.’
But one must be fair and truthful in this matter; the distressing story is not an example of the usual treatment accorded by the authorities to transported noblemen, Russian or Polish; and this isolated case affords no basis for passing judgment upon the system as a whole. My anecdote merely shows that you may meet a bad man anywhere and everywhere. If that type of man happens to be in absolute command of a jail, and if he happens to have a grudge against a prisoner, the poor fellow’s lot will be indeed very far from enviable. But the prison commissioners who regulate and supervise convict labour in Siberia, and from whom subordinates take their tone as well as their orders, are careful to exercise discrimination when dealing with persons of noble birth, and sometimes allow them special privilèges not granted to convicts of lower condition. There are obvious reasons for this: the commissioners are themselves gentlemen, they know that men of that class must not be driven to extremes. Cases have been known where noblemen have refused to submit to corporal punishment, and flung themselves in desperation upon their tormentors with the gravest consequences indeed. Moreover-and this, I think, is the principal cause of leniency-some thirty-five years ago a large party of Russian nobles1 was transported to Siberia: their behaviour was so correct, they bore themselves with such dignity, that the authorities adopted the practice, which they never abandoned, of treating criminals of gentle birth quite differently from ordinary convicts; and subordinate officials took their cue from them.
Many of these underlings, no doubt, were little pleased with the attitude of their superiors; they were only happy when they were free to behave exactly as they liked in the matter. But they had few chances to do so, for they were kept strictly within the rules; I have reason to know this, as I shall now explain. I was put in the second category, which consisted mainly of convicts who had been serfs. We were under military supervision. Now this second category, or class, was much harder than either the first, which worked in the mines, or the third, which was employed in manufacture. It was harder, not only for the nobles but for the other convicts too, because the governing and administrative system and personnel in it were military throughout, and were pretty much the same in type as those of the convict establishments in Russia itself. The officials were more severe, and the general treatment more rigorous than in the two other classes; the men were never out of irons, an escort of soldiers was always present, and you were always or nearly always within stone walls. Things were quite different in the other categories, so, at least, I was told by the convicts, many of whom had every reason to know. They would all gladly have gone to the mines, which the law classified as the extreme penalty: indeed it was their constant dream and desire to do
1 The Decembrists.
so. All those who had been in Russian convict establishments spoke of them with horror, and declared that there was no hell like them, that Siberia was a paradise compared with confinement in the fortresses in Russia.
If, then, it is the case that we nobles were treated with special consideration in the prison where I served my sentence under direct control of the commander-in-chief, and where the administration was entirely on military lines, there must have been even greater leniency shown convicts of the first and third categories. I think I can speak with some authority about conditions in Siberia; for the rest I base my views upon what I learned from convicts who had experience of all three classes. We, in our prison, were under much more rigorous surveillance than elsewhere; we enjoyed no sort of exemption from the ordinary rules as regards work, confinement, and the wearing of chains; we could do nothing to obtain relaxation of those. I at any rate was well aware that in the ‘good old days’ not so very long ago there had been so much intrigue to undermine the reputation of officials that the authorities were terrified of informers, and that, under existing circumstances, to show indulgence to a convict was regarded as a crime. Everyone, therefore, authorities and convicts alike, lived in constant fear, and we aristocrats were reduced to the common level. The only point on which we were favoured was that of corporal punishment. Even so I do not think we should have been spared that, had we done anything for which it was prescribed, for equality of punishment was strictly enjoined or at least practised. What I am trying to make clear is that we were not wantonly, causelessly ill-treated as were so many prisoners.
When the commander-in-chief heard of the punishment inflicted on Jski, he was extremely angry with the governor, and ordered him to be more careful in future. The facts became widely known. We learned also that the commander-in-chief, who had great confidence in our governor, liked him because of his exact observance of regulations, and regarded him as a most efficient officer, sternly reprimanded him. The governor had taken the lesson to heart, and I have no doubt it was that which prevented his having Mski flogged, as he would have much liked to do, influenced as he was by the slanderous things Af said about Mski.
But he could never find a pretext for inflicting the punishment, however much he persecuted or set spies upon his intended victim. He had to deny himself that pleasure. The Jski affair was noised abroad, and public opinion condemned the governor; some persons openly reproached him for what he had done, and some even abused him to his face.
I may as well describe my first encounter with the governor. Another gentleman and myself had heard, while still at Tobolsk, of the governor’s atrocious character. Certain noblemen who had been condemned a long while before to twenty-five years of this living death, kindly visited us in the transit prison and warned us of the type of man under whom we should find ourselves. They also promised to use what influence they could with their friends in order to ensure that we suffered as little ill-treatment as possible. And, in fact, they did write to the three daughters of the commander-in-chief, who, I believe, interceded on our behalf with their father. But what could he do? No more, of course, than tell the governor to be fair in applying the rules and regulations. It was about three in the afternoon that my companion and I reached the town; the escort took us at once before the tyrant. We awaited his arrival in an ante-room while the deputy was summoned. No sooner had that gentleman entered, than in walked the governor. We saw an inflamed scarlet face that boded no good and filled us with alarm; he seemed like some kind of spider about to hurl itself at a poor fly struggling in its web.
‘What’s your name, man?’ he asked my companion, speaking i
n a harsh, jerky voice as if he wanted to overawe us.
My friend gave his name.
‘And you?’ he said, turning to me and glaring at me from behind his spectacles.
I gave mine.
‘Sergeant! Take ’em to the prison, have ’em shaved at the guard-house, civilian-fashion-hair off half their skulls- and put ’em in irons to-morrow. Why, what sort of cloaks have you got there?’ he said brutally, when he saw the grey cloaks with yellow patches at the back which had been issued to us at Tobolsk. ‘Why, that’s a new uniform, begad-a new uniform! They’re always inventing something or other. That’s a Petersburg trick,’ he said, as he inspected us one after the other. ‘Got anything with ‘em?’ he said abruptly to the sentry who escorted us.
‘They’ve got their own clothes, your Excellency,’ replied he, and the man presented arms, just as if he were on parade, but not without a nervous tremor. Everyone knew the governor and feared him.
‘Take away their clothes: they can’t keep anything but their white linen. Confiscate all coloured articles if they’ve got any, sell them off at the next sale and put the money to the prison account. A convict has no property,’ said he, looking at us severely. ‘Listen! See you behave yourselves; don’t let me hear any complaints. If I do-cat-’o-nine-tails! The smallest offence, and I’ll have you flogged!’
The manner of my reception, which was so different from anything I had ever known, almost made me ill that night. It was a terrible experience on my very first day in the infernal place. But I have already told that part of my story.
Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky Page 168
