In the First Circle

by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn

  “But a door burst open, and everything changed. The usual two guards in dirty dustcoats with hair-choked clippers to shear the sheep did not appear, nor were two or three pairs of the bluntest scissors on earth thrown in for the prisoners to break bits off their nails, oh no! Instead, four apprentice barbers wheeled in four stands with brilliantine, hair cream, nail varnish, and even theatrical wigs. Four ample and imposing master barbers, two of them Armenians, followed. And right there in the barber’s shop, by the door, they . . . no, they didn’t shave the prisoners’ pubic regions pressing on the blunt clippers with all their might in sensitive spots; instead, they dusted the area with pink powder. The prisoners’ withered cheeks felt the feather-light touch of a razor, and their ears were tickled with a whispered ‘Is that uncomfortable?’ Their heads were not close-cropped; indeed, they were offered wigs. Their chins were not scalped; customers who so wished were left with the beginnings of beards and sideburns-to-be. Meanwhile the apprentice barbers were prostrate, trimming toenails. In conclusion, as they went through the door to the baths, they were not asked to hold out their hands for a twenty-gram splash of evil-smelling goo; instead, a sergeant stood there handing each man, against a signed receipt, one sponge, daughter of the coral reefs, and one whole bar of Lilac Fairy toilet soap.

  “After this they were locked in the bathhouse, as usual, to wash to their heart’s content. But the prisoners were not interested in washing. Their arguments were hotter than the Butyrki’s hot water. The dominant party now was that of the optimists, who held that Stalin and Beria had fled to China, that Molotov and Kaganovich had embraced Catholicism, that Russia now had a provisional government of Social Democrats, and that elections to the Constituent Assembly were already under way.

  “At this point the familiar exit door was opened with the ritual clatter, and in the mauve vestibule a series of most extraordinary happenings awaited them; each man was given a fleecy towel . . . and a full bowl of oatmeal porridge, the equivalent of six daily portions for a convict at hard labor. The prisoners threw their towels on the floor and, without spoons or other aids, bolted the porridge down at astonishing speed. Even the major there present, who had grown old in the prison service, was surprised and ordered another bowl all around. They ate another bowl each. What came next none of you will ever guess. They brought in . . . not frostbitten, not rotten, not black, but what may be called normal, edible potatoes.”

  “Now you’ve gone too far,” Potapov’s hearers protested. “That simply can’t be true!”

  “But that’s just how it was! True, they were of the pig potato variety, small and unpeeled, and after they’d already filled their stomachs, the zeks might have refused to eat them, but the diabolical cunning of the thing was that the potatoes were brought not in individual portions but in one common bucket. The prisoners rushed at it with savage howls, inflicting painful knocks upon one another and scrambling over one another’s bare backs, and within a minute the empty bucket was rolling over the stone floor with a clatter.

  “By that time their naked bodies had dried. The old major ordered the zeks to pick their towels up from the floor and addressed them as follows: ‘Dear brothers! You are all honest Soviet citizens, only temporarily isolated from society, some for ten, some for twenty-five years, for your not-too-serious misdemeanors. In spite of the lofty humanism of the Marxist-Leninist creed, in spite of the clearly expressed will of the Party and government, in spite of the repeated instructions of Comrade Stalin in person, those in charge of Butyrki Prison have many errors and irregularities to account for. These are now being corrected.’

  “They’re sending us home! the zeks brazenly decided.

  “ ‘Henceforth we shall treat you as though you were at a holiday resort.’

  “Their spirits sank: We’re not getting out!

  “ ‘In addition to all that was previously allowed, you are now allowed

  (a)to worship your own gods;

  (b)to lie on your bunks, whether by day or by night;

  (c)to leave the cell and go to the bathroom without let or hindrance;

  (d)to write your memoirs.

  “ ‘In addition to things previously prohibited, you are now forbidden

  (a)to blow your noses on sheets and curtains, the property of the state;

  (b)to ask for second helpings;

  (c)to contradict the authorities or complain about them when important visitors enter your cell;

  (d)to take Kazbek cigarettes from the table without asking.

  “ ‘Anyone who breaks one of these rules will be punished with fifteen days in an unheated punishment cell and consigned to one of the remoter camps without the right to correspondence. Is that clear?’

  “Scarcely had the major concluded than . . . what? Did the carts rattle out of the heat-disinfection chamber bearing the prisoners’ underwear and their tattered jackets? No, the hell that had swallowed their rags did not return them, but in came four nice young linen keepers, demurely blushing and smiling sweetly at the prisoners, as if to reassure them that they still had some hopes as men, and began distributing sky blue silk underwear. Then the zeks were given fine cotton shirts, discreet ties, bright yellow American shoes, received under Lend-Lease,* and synthetic worsted suits.

  “Speechless with dread and delight, the prisoners were marched back in columns of two to their own Cell No. 72. But heavens, what a transformation!

  “Out in the hallway their feet stepped on to a strip of rich carpet leading enticingly to the bathroom. Then, as they entered the cell, currents of fresh air played around them, and the immortal sun shone right into their eyes. (The night had gone by while they were busy, and it was now bright morning.) They found that during the night the bars had been painted pale blue, the ‘muzzles’ taken down from the windows, and on the former Butyrki chapel, within the prison yard, a swiveling mirror had been fixed and a guard stationed there to adjust it so that a steady stream of reflected sunlight played upon the windows of Cell No. 72. The walls of the cell, a dark olive green only yesterday, had been sprayed with bright gloss paint, on which artists had depicted doves with streamers in their beaks, inscribed ‘We are for Peace!’ and ‘Peace to all the World!’

  “The bug-ridden bedboards might never have existed. Canvas underlays had been stretched onto the bed frames, with mattresses and feather pillows tucked into them, and sparkling white blankets and sheets peeped from under coquettishly turned-down spreads. By each of the twenty-five bunks stood a locker, long shelves on the walls held books by Marx, Engels, Saint Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas, and in the middle of the cell stood a table with a starched tablecloth and on it flowers in a vase, an ashtray, and an unopened pack of Kazbeks. (All the other extravagances of this magical night were regularized by clever bookkeepers, but Kazbek cigarettes were too much of a luxury to be concealed under any heading on an expense account. The prison commandant had decided to spring for a pack of Kazbeks himself, which was why the penalty for misuse of them was so stiff.)

  “But the greatest transformation was in the corner where the night bucket used to stand. The wall had been washed spotlessly clean and painted. A big lamp flickered before an icon of the Virgin and Child; nearby was the miracle worker Saint Nicholas of Mirlikia, in gleaming vestments, and a tall statue of a Catholic Madonna on a stand, while in a shallow recess, left for some reason by the original builders, there were copies of the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud, and a small, dark bust of the Buddha. The Buddha’s eyes were half closed and the corners of his lips drawn back so that a smile seemed to play on his dark bronze face.

  “Replete with porridge and potatoes and staggering under the unmanageable abundance of new impressions, the zeks undressed and fell asleep at once. A gentle zephyr stirred the lace curtains at the windows, which gave no admittance to flies. A guard stood at the half-open door to see that nobody swiped the Kazbeks.

  “They luxuriated undisturbed till noon, when the white-gloved captain hurried in extra-ord-in-arily flustered
and announced that it was time to rise. The zeks quickly dressed and straightened their beds. A small round table with a white dustcover was then pushed into the room, copies of Bonfire, The USSR Builds, and America were placed upon it, two antique armchairs on casters and also dust-sheeted were wheeled in, and an unbearable silence, full of foreboding, followed. The captain tiptoed between the beds, carrying a handsome white stick to rap the fingers of those who reached for America.

  “In the agonizing silence the prisoners listened. As you very well know from your own experience, hearing is the most important of the prisoner’s senses. His vision is usually limited by walls and ‘muzzles’; his sense of smell is overwhelmed by ignoble odors; there are no new objects for him to touch. But his hearing develops to an extraordinary degree. He identifies sounds immediately, even those from the far end of a corridor; he can tell the time by them and interpret what is going on, whether they’re bringing the hot water around, taking somebody outside for exercise, or passing on a parcel.

  “Hearing brought the beginnings of a solution to the riddle; the steel grating near Cell No. 75 clanged, and a large number of people entered the corridor. The prisoners heard hushed exchanges and footsteps muffled by carpets; then they could distinguish women’s voices and the rustle of skirts, after which the governor of Butyrki Prison appeared right at the door of Cell No. 72 and said cordially, ‘And now Mrs. Roosevelt might be interested in visiting one of our cells. Which shall it be? Let’s pick one at random. No. 72 here, for instance. Open up, Sergeant.’

  “And into the cell came Mrs. Roosevelt, accompanied by a secretary, an interpreter, two respectable matrons of the Quaker persuasion, the prison commandant, and several persons in civilian clothes or MVD uniforms. The white-gloved captain withdrew into the background. Mrs. Roosevelt, widow of the president and as progressive and penetrating as her late husband, had done much in defense of human rights and had now made it her business to visit America’s valiant ally and see for herself how UNRRA aid was distributed (noxious rumors had reached America that UNRRA’s groceries did not reach the common people) and also whether in the Soviet Union freedom of conscience was in any way restricted. She had already been shown simple Soviet citizens (Party officials and MGB officers in disguise), who in their rough workmen’s overalls thanked the United States for its disinterested aid. Now Mrs. Roosevelt had insisted on visiting a prison. Her wish had been granted. She sat down on one of the armchairs, her retinue arranged itself around her, and exchanges through the interpreter began.

  “Sunlight reflected from the swiveling mirror still flooded the cell. The breath of Aeolus gently stirred the curtains.

  “Mrs. Roosevelt was very pleased to find that in a cell chosen at random and taken unawares, everything was so amazingly white, there was a complete absence of flies, and, although it was a working day, the lamp before the icon was aglow.

  “At first the prisoners were too shy to stir, but when the interpreter translated the distinguished visitor’s first question—‘was it to keep the air clean that not one of the prisoners was smoking?’—one of them rose casually, unsealed the box of Kazbeks, lit one, and offered a cigarette to a friend.

  “The major general looked black.

  “ ‘We are fighting against smoking,’ he said with heavy emphasis, ‘because tobacco is poisonous.’

  “Another prisoner sat down at the table and began scanning America, for some reason very rapidly.

  “ ‘What are these people being punished for? That gentleman reading the magazine, for instance?’ the distinguished visitor asked.

  “ ‘That gentleman’ had been given ten years for rashly making the acquaintance of an American tourist.

  “ ‘That man,’ the major general answered, ‘was an active Hitlerite; he served in the Gestapo, personally burned a Russian village down, and raped, if you’ll excuse the word, three Russian peasant women. The number of infants killed by him is incalculable.’

  “ ‘Has he been sentenced to death by hanging?’ Mrs. Roosevelt cried.

  “ ‘No, we have hopes of reforming him. He has been sentenced to ten years of honest labor.’

  “The prisoner’s face expressed suffering, but instead of intervening, he continued reading the magazine with fevered haste.

  “At that moment a Russian Orthodox priest with a big mother-of-pearl pectoral cross just happened to walk into the cell, evidently making his normal round, and was flummoxed to find senior officers and foreign guests there.

  “He made as if to withdraw, but his modest demeanor pleased Mrs. Roosevelt, and she asked him to carry on doing his duty. The priest promptly thrust a pocket Testament on one of the bewildered prisoners, sat down on another prisoner’s bed, and addressed the man, who was petrified with surprise. ‘Well then, my son, you asked me last time to tell you about the sufferings of Our Lord Jesus Christ.’

  “Mrs. Roosevelt requested the major general to ask the prisoners in her presence whether any of them wished to address a complaint to the United Nations.

  “ ‘Attention, prisoners!’ the major general said menacingly. ‘What were you told about the Kazbeks? D’you want a spell in the cooler?’

  “The prisoners had been as silent as if they were under a spell, but now a babble of indignant voices arose:

  “ ‘Citizen governor, we’ve got nothing to smoke!’

  “ ‘We’re going out of our minds.’

  “ ‘We left the stash in our other trousers!’

  “ ‘We just didn’t know.’

  “The illustrious lady saw the unfeigned indignation of the prisoners, heard their heartfelt protests, and listened to the translation all the more attentively: ‘They unanimously protest against the distressing situation of the blacks in America and ask the UN to look into the matter.’

  “Some fifteen minutes passed in agreeable dialogue of this sort. The moment came when the duty officer for the hallway reported to the commandant that dinner had arrived. The guest asked them not to mind her and to go ahead with serving the meal. The door was opened wide, and pretty young waitresses (probably the linen keepers in different uniforms) brought in tureens containing a simple chicken soup with noodles and ladled it into bowls. Instantly it was as though a primitive reflex had transformed the well-behaved prisoners: They jumped up on their beds in their shoes, pressed their knees to their chests, placed their hands palm down beside their feet, and in this canine posture watched with jealous eyes how much soup went into each bowl. The philanthropic ladies were shocked, but the interpreter explained to them that such was the Russian national custom.

  “The prisoners could not be persuaded to sit at the table and eat with the electroplated nickel spoons. They had already fished out their own worn wooden spoons, and no sooner had the priest said grace and the waitresses carried the plates around to the beds, informing them that there was a dish on the table for the disposal of bones, than a terrible suctional tutti was heard, followed by a concerted crunching, and all that had been put on the plates vanished forever. The dish for disposal of bones was not required.

  “ ‘Maybe they’re hungry?’ the anxious visitor absurdly suggested. ‘Maybe they want some more?’

  “ ‘Nobody want more?’ the general asked hoarsely.

  “Nobody did. They all knew the wise camp saying, ‘Ask for more, and you’ll get it from the law.’

  “However, the zeks swallowed meatballs and rice with the same indescribable rapidity.

  “Compote was not on the menu, as it was a weekday.

  “Fully assured that the stories spread by ill-wishers abroad were malicious lies, Mrs. Roosevelt left the cell with her retinue and said outside in the corridor: ‘How uncouth, how primitive these unfortunates are! We can hope, however, that after ten years here they will have acquired some culture. This is a magnificent prison you have!’

  “The priest left with the retinue, skipping out before the cell door was slammed.

  “When the guests had left the corridor, the white-gloved capt
ain darted back into the room.

  “ ‘On your feet!’ he yelled. ‘Line up in pairs! Out in the corridor!’

  “And observing that not everyone had understood his words correctly, he clarified them for the benefit of laggards with the sole of his boot.

  “Only then was it discovered that one ingenious zek had taken permission to write memoirs literally and, while the others were all asleep in the morning, had racked up two chapters: ‘How I Was Tortured’ and ‘Encounters in Lefortovo.’

  “The memoirs were promptly impounded and the overeager writer booked for further investigation on a charge of ‘foully libeling the Organs of State Security.’

  “Once again with snapping of fingers and jingling of keys—‘prisoner and escort’—they were led through numerous steel doors to the changing room, iridescent as ever with its malachite green and ruby red tiles. There they were relieved of everything they had been given, right down to the sky blue silk underwear, and an especially thorough body search was carried out, in the course of which one zek was found concealing in his cheek the Sermon on the Mount, torn out of a Testament. For this he was slapped on his right cheek, then made to turn his left. The coral-reef sponges and the Lilac Fairy were also taken from them, and once again every zek was made to sign his name in confirmation.

  “Two guards in dirty overall coats came in and set about shearing the prisoners’ pubic areas with blunt and clogged clippers, then denuded cheeks and skulls with the same instruments. In conclusion, twenty grams of evil-smelling liquid soap substitute were poured into each palm, and they were all locked in the bathhouse. There was nothing for it—the prisoners washed yet again.

  “Then the exit door was opened with the ritual clatter, and they went out into the violet vestibule. Two aged women, handmaidens of hell, thunderously trundled their carts out of the heat-disinfection chamber, and there on the red-hot hooks hung the rags that our heroes knew so well.