by Leo Tolstoy
Towards the evening of the second day he got to his feet and walked to the tavern nearby. Reaching the tavern with a great effort, he began drinking. Yet however much he drank, he was quite unable to get drunk. He sat silently at a table, downing one glass after another. Then into the tavern walked the village constable.
‘And who might you be then?’ enquired the constable.
‘I’m the one who cut all those people’s throats at the Dobrotvorovs’ house the other night.’
They bound him, and after holding him for a day at the district police station, sent him off to the main town of the province. The warden of the prison, recognizing him as a former prisoner and a trouble-maker who had now done something really bad, gave him a stern reception.
‘You’d best get it into your head that you won’t be pulling any tricks with me in charge,’ said the warden in a hoarse wheezing voice, frowning and sticking out his lower jaw. ‘And if I see you trying anything, I’ll have you flogged. And you won’t be escaping from this prison.’
‘Why would I be escaping?’ answered Stepan, looking at the ground. ‘I gave myself up of my own accord.’
‘That’s enough back-chat from you. And when a superior is talking to you, look him in the eye,’ shouted the warden, giving him a punch on the jaw.
At that moment Stepan was again seeing Mariya Semyonovna and hearing her voice. He heard nothing of what the warden had just been saying.
‘What?’ he asked, coming to his senses as he felt the blow on his chin.
‘Come on, come on now – forward march, and none of your funny business.’
The warden was expecting Stepan to get violent, to hatch schemes with other prisoners, and to try and make a break for it. But there was nothing of that kind. Whenever the guard or the warden himself looked through the peephole in his cell door, Stepan would be sitting there on a sack stuffed with straw, his head propped up in his hands, whispering something to himself. When being questioned by the investigator he also behaved quite differently from the other prisoners: he seemed absent-minded, as if he did not hear the questions, and when he did grasp them he was so truthful in his answers that the investigator, accustomed as he was to contending with the ingenuity and cunning of accused prisoners, felt rather like a man climbing a staircase in the dark, who lifts his foot to find the next step, which turns out not to be there. Stepan gave a full account of all the murders he had committed, screwing up his brow and staring at a fixed point in space, and speaking in the simplest, most businesslike manner as he tried to recall all the details: ‘He came out barefoot,’ said Stepan, talking about the first murder, ‘and he stood there in the doorway, and so I slashed him just the once and he started to wheeze, and I got straight on with it and dealt with his old woman.’ And so he went on. When the public prosecutor made his round of the cells Stepan was asked if he had any complaints or if he needed anything. He answered that there was nothing he needed and that he wasn’t being mistreated. The prosecutor walked a few steps down the stinking corridor, then stopped and asked the warden, who was accompanying him, how this prisoner was behaving.
‘It’s a most extraordinary thing,’ replied the warden, gratified that Stepan had praised the way he was being treated. ‘He’s been with us for over a month now, and his behaviour is exemplary. I am just concerned that he may be thinking up something. He’s a fearless fellow, and he’s exceptionally strong.’
II
During his first month in prison Stepan was constantly tormented by the same thing: he could see the grey walls of his cell and hear the prison noises – the hum of voices on the common cell in the floor below him, the guard’s footsteps in the corridor, the clangs that marked the passing of the hours – but at the same time he could see her, and that meek expression of hers which had already got the better of him when he had met her in the street, and the scraggy, wrinkled throat which he had slashed; and he could hear her touching, pitiful, lisping voice saying: ‘You think you’re destroying others, but it’s your own soul you’re destroying. You can’t do this.’ Then the voice would fall silent, and those three would appear – the black devils. And they kept on appearing just the same, whether his eyes were open or shut. When his eyes were shut they looked more distinct. When Stepan opened his eyes the devils would blend into the doorways and the walls and vanish for a while, but then they came at him again, from in front of him and from both sides, making dreadful faces and repeating: ‘Do away with yourself, do away with yourself. You could make a noose, you could start a fire.’ And then Stepan would start to shake, and to repeat all the prayers he could remember – the Hail Mary and the Our Father – and at first that seemed to help him. As he recited the prayers he would start to recall his past life: his father and mother, his village, the dog Wolfcub, his grandad asleep on top of the stove, the upturned benches on which he had gone sledging with the other lads; and then he would recall the girls and their songs, and the horses, how they had been stolen and how they had managed to catch the horse-thief, and how he had finished the thief off with a stone. And he would recall his first term in prison and his release, and he would recall the fat innkeeper and the drayman’s wife and the children, and then once again he would recall her. And he would feel hot all over, and throw off his prison robe, leap up from his plank-bed and start pacing rapidly up and down his cramped cell like a wild animal in a cage, making a rapid turn each time he came up against the damp, oozing walls. And again he would start to recite his prayers, but the prayers were beginning to lose their effect.
One long autumn evening, when the wind was whistling and howling in the chimney-flues and he had had enough of pacing up and down his cell, he sat down on his bunk, and realizing that he could not go on struggling any longer, that the devils were too strong for him, he gave in to them. For some time he had had his eye on the stove-pipe. If he could wind some thin cord or some thin strips of cloth round it, it ought to hold. But he would need to go about it cleverly. So he set to work, and for two days he worked away to get some strips of linen from the palliasse he slept on (when the guard came in he covered the bunk with his dressing-gown). He tied the strips together with knots, double ones so that they would hold the weight of his body without pulling away. While he was busy with this task his torments abated. When everything was ready he made a noose, placed it round his neck, climbed up on to the bed and hanged himself. But his tongue had only just begun to protrude when the strips of cloth gave way, and he fell to the floor. Hearing the noise, the guard came running in. They summoned the medical orderly and took him off to the hospital. By the next day he was quite recovered, and was discharged from the hospital and placed not in a solitary cell, but in a communal one.
In the communal cell he lived as one of twenty inmates, but he lived there just as if he had been alone, seeing nobody, talking to nobody, and suffering the same mental torments as before. It was particularly bad for him when everyone else was sleeping and he could not, and as before he kept seeing her and hearing her voice, and then again the black devils would appear, with their dreadful eyes, mocking him.
Again, as before, he recited his prayers, and as before they were of no use.
On one occasion when, after he had said his prayers, she again appeared to him, he started to pray to her, to her little soul, praying that it would let him go, that it would forgive him. And when towards morning he collapsed on to his flattened straw palliasse, he fell fast asleep, and in his sleep he dreamt that she came towards him with her scraggy, wrinkled throat, all cut open.
‘Please, will you forgive me?’
She looked at him with her meek look, and said nothing.
‘Will you forgive me?’
And three times in the same way he begged her to forgive him. But she still said nothing. And then he woke up. From that time on he began to feel better: it was as though he had come to himself, and he looked round him, and for the first time he began to make friends with his cell-mates and to talk to them.
III
One of the prisoners in Stepan’s communal cell was Vasily, who had again been caught stealing and had been sentenced to exile; another was Chuyev, who had likewise been sentenced to forcible resettlement. Vasily spent his time either singing songs in his splendid voice or telling his cell-mates the story of his adventures. Chuyev, on the other hand, was always working, or sewing away at some item of clothing or underwear, or reading the Gospels or the Psalms.
To Stepan’s question as to why he was being exiled, Chuyev replied that it was because of his true faith in Christ and because the false priests could not bear to hear the spirit speaking through people such as he, who lived according to the Gospel, and thus showed up the priests for what they were. And when Stepan asked Chuyev what this Gospel law was, Chuyev explained to him how they had found out about this true faith from a one-legged tailor when they were sharing out some land.
‘All right then, so what happens if you commit evil deeds?’ asked Stepan.
‘It tells you all about that.’ And Chuyev proceeded to read to him:
‘ “When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me.’ Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?’ And the King shall answer and say unto them: ‘Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’ Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand: ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye clothed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.’ Then shall they also answer him, saying: ‘Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?’ Then shall he answer them, saying: ‘Verily I say unto you: inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.’ And these shall go away into the everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal.” ’ (Matthew XXV, 31–46)
Vasily, who had been sitting on the floor opposite Chuyev and listening to him reading, nodded his handsome head approvingly.
‘That’s right,’ he declared firmly, ‘ “Go,” he says, “ye accursed ones into everlasting punishment, you never fed anyone, you just stuffed your own bellies.” That’s just what they deserve. Here, let me have the book and I’ll read some myself,’ he added, wanting to show off his reading skills.
‘But does it say there won’t be any forgiveness?’ asked Stepan, lowering his shaggy head and waiting quietly to listen to the reading.
‘Just you wait a bit and hold your noise,’ said Chuyev to Vasily, who was still going on about the rich not feeding the poor stranger and not visiting anybody in prison. ‘Just wait, will you,’ repeated Chuyev, leafing through the Gospels. Finding the place he was looking for, Chuyev smoothed out the pages with his large, powerful hand, grown quite white from his time in prison.
‘ “And there were also two other, malefactors, led with him” – with Christ, that is,’ began Chuyev, ‘ “to be put to death. And when they were come to the place, which is called the Skull, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.
‘ “Then said Jesus: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’ … And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying: ‘He saved others, let him save himself, if he be the Christ, the chosen of God.’ And the soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, and saying: ‘If thou be the king of the Jews, save thyself.’ And a superscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, and Latin, and Hebrew: ‘This is the king of the Jews.’ And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying: ‘If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.’ But the other answering, rebuked him, saying: ‘Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds; but this man hath done nothing amiss.’ And he said unto Jesus: ‘Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.’ And Jesus said unto him: ‘Verily I say unto thee: today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ ” ’(Luke XXIII, 32–43)
Stepan said nothing, but sat deep in thought as though listening, although in fact he heard nothing more of what Chuyev was reading.
‘So that is what the true faith is all about,’ he thought. ‘It’s only the ones who have given food and drink to the poor and visited the prisoners who will be saved, and those who didn’t do those things will go to hell. All the same, the thief only repented when he was already on the cross, and he still went to heaven.’ He saw no contradiction in this; on the contrary, the one thing seemed to confirm the other: that the merciful would go to heaven, and the unmerciful to hell – that meant that everyone had better be merciful, and the fact that Christ forgave the thief meant that Christ himself was merciful. All this was quite new to Stepan; he was merely surprised that it had remained hidden from him until now. And he spent all his spare time with Chuyev, asking questions and listening to his replies. And as he listened he began to understand. He realized that the overall meaning of this teaching was that men were brothers, and ought to love and pity each other, and then it would be well with all of them. As he listened, he perceived as something forgotten, yet familiar, everything that confirmed the overall meaning of this teaching, and he allowed everything that did not confirm it to slip past his ears, attributing it to his own lack of understanding.
And from that time onwards Stepan became a different man.
IV
Even before this happened Stepan Pelageyushkin had been a docile prisoner, but now the warden, the orderlies and his fellow-prisoners were all amazed at the change which had come over him. Without being ordered, and even when it was not his turn, he carried out all the most arduous duties, among them the cleaning out of the night-bucket. Yet despite his submissiveness his cell-mates respected and feared him, knowing his force of will and his great physical strength, especially after an incident in which two vagrants attacked him and he fought them off, breaking the arm of one of them in the process. These vagrants had set out to beat a well-heeled young prisoner at cards and had taken from him everything he owned. Stepan had stood up for him and managed to get back from them the money they had won. The vagrants had started cursing him, and then tried to beat him up, but he had overpowered them both. When the warden tried to find out the cause of the quarrel, the vagrants had maintained that it was Pelageyushkin who had set upon them both. Stepan made no attempt to justify himself, but meekly accepted his punishment, which consisted of three days in the punishment block, followed by transfer to a solitary cell.
He found it hard to be in solitary confinement because it separated him from Chuyev and the Gospels; moreover, he was afraid that his visions of the woman he had killed and the black devils might start again. But his hallucinations did not return. His entire soul was now full of a new and joyful spirit. He would even have been glad of his isolation, if only he had been able to read and if he had possessed a copy of the Gospels. That the authorities would have provided him with, but he could not read.
As a boy he had begun to learn to read in the old-fashione
d way, spelling out the letters – az, buki, vyedi10 – but not being very bright he got no further than the alphabet, was quite unable at that stage to grasp how words were strung together, and so remained illiterate. Now, however, he determined to do the job properly, and asked the orderly for a copy of the New Testament. The orderly brought him one and he set to work. He was able to recognize the letters, but he could make no progress towards putting them together. However much he racked his brains to understand how words could be composed out of individual letters, he could make nothing of it. He could not sleep at night, could not stop thinking about his problem, and lost his appetite for food, falling so low in spirits that he had a bad infestation of lice and could not get rid of them.
‘Well then, have you still not got there?’ the orderly asked him one day.
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘But you know the Our Father, don’t you?’
‘Of course I know it.’
‘So, just try reading that. Look, here it is’ – and the orderly showed him the Lord’s Prayer in the New Testament.
