Chapter Chapter 2 · TEN YEARS A CONVICT

In the midst of the steppes, of the mountains, of the impenetrable

forests of the desert regions of Siberia, one meets from time to time

with little towns of a thousand or two inhabitants, built entirely of

wood, very ugly, with two churches--one in the centre of the town, the

other in the cemetery--in a word, towns which bear much more resemblance

to a good-sized village in the suburbs of Moscow than to a town properly

so called. In most cases they are abundantly provided with

police-master, assessors, and other inferior officials. If it is cold in

Siberia, the great advantages of the Government service compensate for

it. The inhabitants are simple people, without liberal ideas. Their

manners are antique, solid, and unchanged by time. The officials who

form, and with reason, the nobility in Siberia, either belong to the

country, deeply-rooted Siberians, or they have arrived there from

Russia. The latter come straight from the capitals, tempted by the high

pay, the extra allowance for travelling expenses, and by hopes not less

seductive for the future. Those who know how to resolve the problem of

life remain almost always in Siberia; the abundant and richly-flavoured

fruit which they gather there recompenses them amply for what they lose.

As for the others, light-minded persons who are unable to deal with the

problem, they are soon bored in Siberia, and ask themselves with regret

why they committed the folly of coming. They impatiently kill the three

years which they are obliged by rule to remain, and as soon as their

time is up, they beg to be sent back, and return to their original

quarters, running down Siberia, and ridiculing it. They are wrong, for

it is a happy country, not only as regards the Government service, but

also from many other points of view.

The climate is excellent, the merchants are rich and hospitable, the

Europeans in easy circumstances are numerous; as for the young girls,

they are like roses and their morality is irreproachable. Game is to be

found in the streets, and throws itself upon the sportsman’s gun. People

drink champagne in prodigious quantities. The caviare is astonishingly

good and most abundant. In a word, it is a blessed land, out of which it

is only necessary to be able to make profit; and much profit is really

made.

It is in one of these little towns--gay and perfectly satisfied with

themselves, the population of which has left upon me the most agreeable

impression--that I met an exile, Alexander Petrovitch Goriantchikoff,

formerly a landed proprietor in Russia. He had been condemned to hard

labour of the second class for assassinating his wife. After undergoing

his punishment--ten years of hard labour--he lived quietly and unnoticed

as a colonist in the little town of K----. To tell the truth, he was

inscribed in one of the surrounding districts; but he resided at K----,

where he managed to get a living by giving lessons to children. In the

towns of Siberia one often meets with exiles who are occupied with

instruction. They are not looked down upon, for they teach the French

language, so necessary in life, and of which without them one would not,

in the distant parts of Siberia, have the least idea.

I saw Alexander Petrovitch the first time at the house of an official,

Ivan Ivanitch Gvosdikof, a venerable old man, very hospitable, and the

father of five daughters, of whom the greatest hopes were entertained.

Four times a week Alexander Petrovitch gave them lessons, at the rate of

thirty kopecks silver a lesson. His external appearance interested me.

He was excessively pale and thin, still young--about thirty-five years

of age--short and weak, always very neatly dressed in the European

style. When you spoke to him he looked at you in a very attentive

manner, listening to your words with strict politeness, and with a

reflective air, as though you had placed before him a problem or wished

to extract from him a secret. He replied clearly and shortly; but in

doing so, weighed each word, so that one felt ill at ease without

knowing why, and was glad when the conversation came to an end. I put

some questions to Ivan Gvosdikof in regard to him. He told me that

Goriantchikoff was of irreproachable morals, otherwise Gvosdikof would

not have entrusted him with the education of his children; but that he

was a terrible misanthrope, who kept apart from all society; that he was

very learned, a great reader, and that he spoke but little, and never

entered freely into a conversation. Certain persons told him that he was

mad; but that was not looked upon as a very serious defect. Accordingly,

the most important persons in the town were ready to treat Alexander

Petrovitch with respect, for he could be useful to them in writing

petitions. It was believed that he was well connected in Russia.

Perhaps, among his relations, there were some who were highly placed;

but it was known that since his exile he had broken off all relations

with them. In a word--he injured himself. Every one knew his story, and

was aware that he had killed his wife, through jealousy, less than a

year after his marriage; and that he had given himself up to justice;

which had made his punishment much less severe. Such crimes are always

looked upon as misfortunes, which must be treated with pity.

Nevertheless, this original kept himself obstinately apart, and never

showed himself except to give lessons. In the first instance I paid no

attention to him; then, without knowing why, I found myself interested

by him. He was rather enigmatic; to talk with him was quite impossible.

Certainly he replied to all my questions; he seemed to make it a duty to

do so; but when once he had answered, I was afraid to interrogate him

any longer.

After such conversations one could observe on his countenance signs of

suffering and exhaustion. I remember that, one fine summer evening, I

went out with him from the house of Ivan Gvosdikof. It suddenly occurred

to me to invite him to come in with me and smoke a cigarette. I can

scarcely describe the fright which showed itself in his countenance. He

became confused, muttered incoherent words, and suddenly, after looking

at me with an angry air, took to flight in an opposite direction. I was

very much astonished afterwards, when he met me. He seemed to

experience, on seeing me, a sort of terror; but I did not lose courage.

There was something in him which attracted me.

A month afterwards I went to see Petrovitch without any pretext. It is

evident that, in doing so, I behaved foolishly, and without the least

delicacy. He lived at one of the extreme points of the town with an old

woman whose daughter was in a consumption. The latter had a little child

about ten years old, very pretty and very lively.

When I went in Alexander Petrovitch was seated by her side, and was

teaching her to read. When he saw me he became confused, as if I had

detected him in a crime. Losing all self-command, he suddenly stood up

and looked at me with awe and astonishment. Then we both of us sat down.

He followed attentively all my looks, as if I had suspected him of some

mysterious intention. I understood he was horribly mistrustful. He

looked at me as a sort of spy, and he seemed to be on the point of

saying, “Are you not soon going away?”

I spoke to him of our little town, of the news of the day, but he was

silent, or smiled with an air of displeasure. I could see that he was

absolutely ignorant of all that was taking place in the town, and that

he was in no way curious to know. I spoke to him afterwards of the

country generally, and of its men. He listened to me still in silence,

fixing his eyes upon me in such a strange way that I became ashamed of

what I was doing. I was very nearly offending him by offering him some

books and newspapers which I had just received by post. He cast a greedy

look upon them; he then seemed to alter his mind, and declined my offer,

giving his want of leisure as a pretext.

At last I wished him good-bye, and I felt a weight fall from my

shoulders as I left the house. I regretted to have harassed a man whose

tastes kept him apart from the rest of the world. But the fault had been

committed. I had remarked that he possessed very few books. It was not

true, then, that he read so much. Nevertheless, on two occasions when I

drove past, I saw a light in his lodging. What could make him sit up so

late? Was he writing, and if that were so, what was he writing?

I was absent from our town for about three months. When I returned home

in the winter, I learned that Petrovitch was dead, and that he had not

even sent for a doctor. He was even now already forgotten, and his

lodging was unoccupied. I at once made the acquaintance of his landlady,

in the hope of learning from her what her lodger had been writing. For

twenty kopecks she brought me a basket full of papers left by the

defunct, and confessed to me that she had already employed four sheets

in lighting her fire. She was a morose and taciturn old woman. I could

not get from her anything that was interesting. She could tell me

nothing about her lodger. She gave me to understand all the same that he

scarcely ever worked, and that he remained for months together without

opening a book or touching a pen. On the other hand, he walked all night

up and down his room, given up to his reflections. Sometimes, indeed, he

spoke aloud. He was very fond of her little grandchild, Katia, above all

when he knew her name; on her name’s-day--the day of St. Catherine--he

always had a requiem said in the church for some one’s soul. He detested

receiving visits, and never went out except to give lessons. Even his

landlady he looked upon with an unfriendly eye when, once a week, she

came into his room to put it in order.

During the three years he had passed with her, he had scarcely ever

spoken to her. I asked Katia if she remembered him. She looked at me in

silence, and turned weeping to the wall. This man, then, was loved by

some one! I took away the papers, and passed the day in examining them.

They were for the most part of no importance, merely children’s

exercises. At last I came to a rather thick packet, the sheets of which

were covered with delicate handwriting, which abruptly ceased. It had

perhaps been forgotten by the writer. It was the narrative--incoherent

and fragmentary--of the ten years Alexander Petrovitch had passed in

hard labour. This narrative was interrupted, here and there, either by

anecdotes, or by strange, terrible recollections thrown in convulsively

as if torn from the writer. I read some of these fragments again and

again, and I began to doubt whether they had not been written in moments

of madness; but these memories of the convict prison--“Recollections of

the Dead-House,” as he himself called them somewhere in his

manuscript--seemed to me not without interest. They revealed quite a new

world unknown till then; and in the strangeness of his facts, together

with his singular remarks on this fallen people, there was enough to

tempt me to go on. I may perhaps be wrong, but I will publish some

chapters from this narrative, and the public shall judge for itself.