Chapter Chapter 20 · GRIEVANCES

At the outset of this chapter, the editor of the “Recollections” of the

late Alexander Petrovitch Goriantchikoff thinks it his duty to

communicate what follows to his readers.

“In the first chapter of the ‘Recollections of the House of the Dead,’

something was said about a parricide, of noble birth, who was put

forward as an instance of the insensibility with which the convicts

speak of the crimes they have committed. It was also stated that he

refused altogether to confess to the authorities and the court; but

that, thanks to the statements of persons who knew all the details of

his case and history, his guilt was put beyond all doubt. These persons

had informed the author of the ‘Recollections,’ that the criminal had

been of dissolute life and overwhelmed with debts, and that he had

murdered his father to come into the property. Besides, the whole town

where this parricide was imprisoned told his story in precisely the same

way, a fact of which the editor of these ‘Recollections’ has fully

satisfied himself. It was further stated that this murderer, even when

in the jail, was of quite a joyous and cheerful frame of mind, a sort of

inconsiderate giddy-pated person, although intelligent, and that the

author of the ‘Recollections’ had never observed any particular signs of

cruelty about him, to which he added, ‘So I, for my part, never could

bring myself to believe him guilty.’

“Some time ago the editor of the ‘Recollections of the House of the

Dead,’ had intelligence from Siberia of the discovery of the innocence

of this ‘parricide,’ and that he had undergone ten years of the

imprisonment with hard labour for nothing; this was recognised and

avowed by the authorities. The real criminals had been discovered and

had confessed, and the unfortunate man in question set at liberty. All

this stands upon unimpeachable and authoritative grounds.”

To say more would be useless. The tragical facts speak too clearly for

themselves. All words are weak in such a case, where a life has been

ruined by such an accusation. Such mistakes as these are among the

dreadful possibilities of life, and such possibilities impart a keener

and more vivid interest to the “Recollections of the House of the Dead,”

which dreadful place we see may contain innocent as well as guilty men.

To continue. I have said that I became at last, in some sense,

accustomed, if not reconciled, to the conditions of convict life; but it

was a long and dreadful time before I was. It took me nearly a year to

get used to the prison, and I shall always regard this year as the most

dreadful of my life, it is graven deep in my memory, down to the very

least details. I think that I could minutely recall the events and

feelings of each successive hour in it.

I have said that the other prisoners, too, found it as difficult as I

did to get used to the life they had to lead. During the whole of this

first year, I used to ask myself whether they were really as calm as

they seemed to be. Questions of this kind pressed themselves upon me. As

I have mentioned before, all the convicts felt themselves in an alien

element to which they could not reconcile themselves. The sense of home

was an impossibility; they felt as if they were staying, as a stage

upon a journey, in an evil sort of inn. These men, exiles for and from

life, seemed either in a perpetual smouldering agitation, or else in

deep depression; but there was not one who had not his ordinary ideas of

one thing or another. This restlessness, which, if it did not come to

the surface, was still unmistakable; those vague hopes of the poor

creatures which existed in spite of themselves, hopes so ill-founded

that they were more like the promptings of incipient insanity than aught

else; all this stamped the place with a character, an originality,

peculiarly its own. One could not but feel when one went there that

there was nothing like it anywhere else in the whole world. There

everybody went about in a sort of waking dream; nor was there anything

to relieve or qualify the impressions the place made on the system of

every man; so that all seemed to suffer from a sort of hyperæsthetic

neurosis, and this dreaming of impossibilities gave to the majority of

the convicts a sombre and morose aspect, for which the word morbid is

not strong enough. Nearly all were taciturn and irascible, preferring to

keep to themselves the hopes they secretly and vainly cherished. The

result was, that anything like ingenuousness or frank statement was the

object of general contempt. Precisely because these wild hopings were

impossible, and, despite themselves, were felt to be so, confessed to

their more lucid selves to be so, they kept them jealously concealed in

the most secret recesses of their souls; while to renounce them was

beyond their powers of self-control. It may be they were ashamed of

their imagination. God knows. The Russian character is, in its normal

conditions, so positive and sober in its way of looking at life, so

pitiless in criticism of its own weaknesses.

Perhaps it was this inward misery of self-dissatisfaction which was at

the bottom of the impatience and intolerance the convicts showed among

themselves, and of the cruel biting things they said to each other. If

one of them, more naïve or impartial than the rest, put into words what

every one of them had in his mind, painted his castles in the air, told

his dreams of liberty, or plans of escape, they shut him up with brutal

promptitude, and made the poor fellow’s life a burden to him with their

sarcasms and jests. And I think those did it most unscrupulously who had

perhaps themselves gone furthest in cherishing futile hopes, and

indulging in senseless expectations. I have said, more than once, that

those among them who were marked by simplicity and candour were looked

on rather as being stupid and idiotic; there was nothing but contempt

for them. The convicts were so soured and, in the wrong sense,

sensitive, that they positively hated anything like amiability or

unselfishness. I should be disposed to classify them all broadly, as

either good or bad men, morose or cheerful, putting by themselves, as a

sort of separate creatures, the ingenious fellows who could not hold

their tongues. But the sour-tempered were in far the greatest majority;

some of these were talkative, but these were usually of slanderous and

envious disposition, always poking their noses into other people’s

business, though they took good care not to let anybody have a glimpse

of the secret thoughts of their _own_ souls; that would have been

against the fashions and conventions of this strange, little world. As

to the fellows who were really good--very few indeed were they--these

were always very quiet and peaceable, and buried their hopes, if they

had any, in strict silence; but more of real faith went with their hopes

than was the case with the gloomy-minded among the convicts. Stay, there

was one category further among our convicts, which ought not to be

forgotten; the men who had lost all hope, who were despairing and

desperate, like the old man of Starodoub; but these were very few

indeed.

The old man of Starodoub! This was a very subdued, quiet, old man; but

there were some indications of what went on in him, which he could not

help giving, and from which, I could not help seeing, that his inward

life was one of intolerable horror; still he had _something_ to fall

back upon for help and consolation--prayer, and the notion that he was a

martyr. The convict who was always reading the Bible, of whom I spoke

earlier, the one that went mad and threw himself, brick in hand, upon

the Major, was also probably one of those whom hope had altogether

abandoned; and, as it is perfectly impossible to go on living without

hope of some sort, he threw away his life as a sort of voluntary

sacrifice. He declared that he attacked the Major though he had no

grievance in particular; all he wanted was to have some torments

inflicted on himself.

Now, what sort of psychological operation had been going on in _that_

man’s soul? No man lives, can live, without having _some_ object in

view, and making efforts to attain that object. But when object there is

none, and hope is entirely fled, anguish often turns a man into a

monster. The object _we_ all had in view was liberty, and getting out of

our place of confinement and hard labour.

So I try to place our convicts in separately-defined classes and

categories; but it cannot well be done. Reality is a thing of infinite

diversity, and defies the most ingenious deductions and definitions of

abstract thought, nay, abhors the clear and precise classifications we

so delight in. Reality tends to infinite subdivision of things, and

truth is a matter of infinite shadings and differentiations. Every one

of us who were there had his own peculiar, interior, strictly personal

life, which lay altogether outside of the world of regulations and our

official superintendence.

But, as I have said before, I could not penetrate the depths of this

interior life in the early part of my prison career, for everything that

met my eyes, or challenged my attention in any way, filled me with a

sadness for which there are no words. Sometimes I felt nothing short of

hatred for poor creatures whose martyrdom was at least as great as mine.

In those first days I envied them, because they were among persons of

their own sort, and understood one another; so I thought, but the truth

was that their enforced companionship, the comradeship where the word of

command went with the whip or the rod, was as much an object of aversion

to them as it was to myself, and every one of them tried to keep himself

as much to himself as possible. This envious hatred of them, which came

to me in moments of irritation, was not without its reasonable cause,

for those who tell you so confidently that a cultivated man of the

higher class does not suffer as a mere peasant does, are utterly in the

wrong. That is a thing I have often heard said, and read too. In the

abstract, the notion seems correct, and it is founded in generous

sentiment, for all convicts are human beings alike; but in reality it is

different. In the real living facts of the problem there come in a

quantity of practical complications, and only experience can pronounce

upon these: experience which I have had. I do not mean to lay it down

peremptorily, that the nobleman and the man of culture feel more

acutely, sensitively, deeply, because of their more highly developed

conditions of being. On the other hand, it is impossible to bring all

souls to one common level or standard; neither the grade of education,

nor any other thing, furnishes a standard according to which punishment

can be meted out.

It is a great satisfaction to me to be able to say that among these

dreadful sufferers, in a state of things so barbarous and abject, I

found abundant proof that the elements of moral development were not

wanting. In our convict establishment there were men whom I was familiar

with for several years, and whom I looked upon as wild beasts and

abhorred as such; well, all of a sudden, when I least expected it, these

very men would exhibit such an abundance of feeling of the best kind, so

keen a comprehension of the sufferings of others, seen in the light of

the consciousness of their own, that one might almost fancy scales had

fallen from their eyes. So sudden was it as to cause stupefaction; one

could scarcely believe one’s eyes or ears. Sometimes it was just the

other way: educated men, well brought up, would occasionally display a

savage, cynical brutality which nearly turned one’s stomach, conduct of

a kind impossible to excuse or justify, however much you might be

charitably inclined to do so.

I lay no stress on the entire change in the habits of life, the food,

etc., as to which there come in points where the man of the higher

classes suffers so much more keenly than the peasant or working man, who

often goes hungry when free, while he always has his stomach-full in

prison. We will leave all that out. Let it be admitted that for a man

with some force of character these external things are a trifle in

comparison with privations of a quite different kind; for all that, such

total change of material conditions and habits is neither an easy nor a

slight thing. But in the convict’s _status_ there are elements of horror

before which all other horrors pale, even the mud and filth everywhere

about, the scantiness and uncleanness of the food, the irons on your

limbs, the suffocating sense of being always held tight, as in a vice.

The capital, the most important point of all is, that after a couple of

hours or so, every new-comer to a convict establishment, who is of the

lower class, shakes down into equality with the rest; he is _at home_

among them, he has his “freedom” of this city of the enslaved, this

community of convicted scoundrels, in which one man is superficially

like every other man; he understands and is understood, he is looked

upon by everybody as _one of themselves_. Now all this is _not_ so in

the case of the nobleman. However kindly, just-minded, intelligent a man

of the higher class may be, every soul there will hate and despise him

during long years; they will neither understand nor believe in him, not

one whit. He will be neither friend nor comrade in their eyes; if he

can get them to stop insulting him it will be as much as he can do, but

he will be alien to them from the first to the last, he will have to

feel the grief of a ceaseless, hopeless, causeless solitude and

sequestration. Sometimes it is the case that sheer ill-will on the part

of the prisoners has nothing to do with bringing about this state of

things, it simply cannot be helped; the nobleman is not one of the gang,

and there’s the whole secret.

There is nothing more horrible than to live out of the social sphere to

which you properly belong. The peasant, transported from Taganrog to

Petropavlosk, finds there Russian peasants like himself; between him and

them there can be mutual intelligence; in an hour they will be friends,

and live comfortably together in the same izba or the same barrack. With

the nobleman it is wholly otherwise; a bottomless abyss separates him

from the lower classes, _how_ deep and impassable is only seen when a

nobleman forfeits his position and becomes as one of the populace

himself. You may be your whole life in daily relations with the peasant,

forty years you may do business with him regularly as the day comes--let

us suppose it so, at all events--by the calls of official position or

administrative duty; you may be his benefactor, all but a father to

him--well, you’ll never know what is at the bottom of the man’s mind or

heart. You may think you know something about him, but it is all optical

illusion, nothing more. My readers will charge me with exaggeration, but

I am convinced I am quite right. I don’t go on theory or book-reading in

this; in my case the realities of life have given me only too ample time

and opportunity for reviewing and correcting my theoretic convictions,

which, as to this, are now fixed. Perhaps everybody will some day learn

how well founded I am in what I say about this.

All this was theory when I first went into the convict establishment,

but events, and things observed, soon came to confirm me in such views,

and what I experienced so affected my system as to undermine its

health. During the first summer I wandered about the place, so far as I

was free to move, a solitary, friendless man. My moral situation was

such that I could not distinguish those among the convicts who, in the

sequel, managed to care for me a little in spite of the distance that

always remained between us. There _were_ there men of my own position,

ex-nobles like myself, but their companionship was repugnant to me.

Here is one of the incidents which obliged me to see at the outset, how

solitary a creature I was, and all the strangeness of my position at the

place. One day in August, a fine warm day, about one o’clock in the

afternoon, a time when, as a rule, everybody took a nap before resuming

work, the convicts rose as one man and massed themselves in the

court-yard. I had not the slightest idea, up to that moment, that

anything was going on. So deeply had I been sunk in my own thoughts,

that I saw nearly nothing of what was happening about me of any kind.

But it seems that the convicts had been in a smouldering sort of unusual

agitation for three days. Perhaps it had begun sooner; so I thought

later when I remembered stray remarks, bits of talk that had come to my

ears, the palpable increase of ill-humour among the prisoners, their

unusual irritability for some time past. I had attributed it all to the

trying summer work, the insufferably long days; to their dreamings about

the woods, and freedom, which the season brought up; to the nights too

short for rest. It may be that all these things came together to form a

mass of discontent, that only wanted a tolerably good reason for

exploding; it was found in the food.

For several days the convicts had not concealed their dissatisfaction

with it in open talk in their barracks, and they showed it plainly when

assembled for dinner or supper; one of the cooks had been changed, but,

after a couple of days, the new comer was sent to the right-about, and

the old one brought back. The restlessness and ill-humour were general;

mischief was brewing.

“Here are we slaving to death, and they give us nothing but filth to

eat,” grumbled one in the kitchen.

“If you don’t like it, why don’t you order jellies and blanc-mange?”

said another.

“Sour cabbage soup, why, that’s _good_. I delight in it; there’s nothing

more juicy,” exclaimed a third.

“Well, if they gave you nothing but beef, beef, beef, for ever and ever,

would you like _that_?”

“Yes, yes; they ought to give us meat,” said a fourth; “one’s almost

killed at the workshops; and, by heaven! when one has got through with

work there one’s hungry, hungry; and you don’t get anything to satisfy

your hunger.”

“It’s true, the victuals are simply damnable.”

“He fills his pockets, don’t you fear!”

“It isn’t your business.”

“Whose business is it? My belly’s my own. If we were all to make a row

about it together, you’d soon see.”

“Yes.”

“Haven’t we been beaten enough for complaining, dolt that you are?”

“True enough! What’s done in a hurry is never well done. And how would

you set about making a raid over it, tell me that?”

“I’ll tell you, by God! If everybody will go, I’ll go too, for I’m just

dying of hunger. It’s all very well for those who eat at a better table,

apart, to keep quiet; but those who eat the regulation food----”

“There’s a fellow with eyes that do their work, bursting with envy _he_

is. Don’t his eyes glisten when he sees something that doesn’t belong to

him?”

“Well, pals, why don’t we make up our minds? Have we gone through

enough? They flay us, the brigands! Let’s go at them.”

“What’s the good? I tell you ye must chew what they give you, and stuff

your mouth full of it. Look at the fellow, he wants people to chew his

food for him. We’re in prison, and have got to stand it.”

“Yes, that’s it; we’re in prison.”

“That’s it always; the people die of hunger, and the Government fills

its belly.”

“That’s true. Our eight-eyes (_the Major_) has got finely fat over it;

he’s bought a pair of gray horses.”

“He don’t like his glass at all, that fellow,” said a convict

ironically.

“He had a bout at cards a little while ago with the vet; for two hours

he played without a half-penny in his pocket. Fedka told me so.”

“That’s why we get cabbage soup that’s fit for nothing.”

“You’re all idiots! It doesn’t matter; _nothing_ matters.”

“I tell you if we all join in complaining we shall see what he has to

say for himself. Let’s make up our minds.”

“_Say_ for himself? You’ll get his fist on your pate; that’s just all.”

“I tell you they’ll have him up, and try him.”

All the prisoners were in great agitation; the truth is, the food was

execrable. The general anguish, suffering, and suspense seemed to be

coming to a head. Convicts are, by disposition, or, as such, quarrelsome

and rebellious; but a general revolt is rare, for they can never agree

upon it; we all of us felt that since there was, as a rule, more violent

talk than doing.

This time, however, the agitation did not fall to the ground. The men

gathered in groups in their barracks, talking things over in a violent

way, and going over all the particulars of the Major’s misdoings, and

trying to get to the bottom of them. In all affairs of that sort there

are ringleaders and firebrands. The ringleaders on such occasions are

generally rather remarkable fellows, not only in convict

establishments, but among all large organisations of workmen, military

detachments, etc. They are always people of a peculiar type,

enthusiastic men, who have a thirst for justice, very naïve, simple, and

strong, convinced that their desires are fully capable of realisation;

they have as much sense as other people; some are of high intelligence;

but they are too full of warmth and zeal to measure their acts. When you

come across people who really do know how to direct the masses, and get

what they want, you find a quite different sort of popular leaders, and

one excessively rare among us Russians. The more usual type of leader,

the one I first alluded to, does certainly in some sense accomplish

their object, so far as bringing about a rising is concerned; but it all

ends in filling up the prisons and convict establishments. Thanks to

their impetuosity they always come off second-best; but it is this

impetuosity that gives them their influences over the masses; their

ardent, honest indignation does its work, and draws in the more

irresolute. Their blind confidence of success seduces even the most

hardened sceptics, although this confidence is generally based on such

uncertain, childish reasons that it is wonderful how people can put

faith in them.

The secret of their influence is that they put themselves at the head,

and _go_ ahead, without flinching. They dash forward, heads down, often

without the least knowledge worth the name of what they are about, and

have nothing about them of the jesuitical practical faculty by dint of

which a vile and worthless man often hits his mark and comes uppermost,

and will sometimes come all white out of a tub of ink. They _must_ dash

their skulls against stone walls. Under ordinary circumstances these

people are bilious, irascible, intolerant, contemptuous, often very

warm, which really after all is part of the secret of their strength.

The deplorable thing is that they never go at what is the essential, the

vital part of their task, they always go off at once into details

instead of going straight to their mark, and this is their ruin. But

they and the mob understand one another; that makes them formidable.

I must say a few words about this word “grievance.”

Some of the convicts had been transported in connection with a

“grievance;” these were the most excited among them, notably a certain

Martinoff, who had formerly served in the Hussars, an eager, restless,

and choleric, but a worthy and truthful, fellow. Another, Vassili

Antonoff, could work himself up into anger coolly and collectedly; he

had a generally impudent expression, and a sarcastic smile, but he, too,

was honest, and a man of his word, and of no little education. I won’t

enumerate; there were plenty of them. Petroff went about in a hurried

way from one group to another. He spoke few words, but he was quite as

highly excited as any one there, for he was the first to spring out of

the barrack when the others massed themselves in the court-yard.

Our sergeant, who acted as sergeant-major, came up very soon in quite a

fright. The convicts got into rank, and politely begged him to tell the

Major that they wanted to speak with him and put him a few questions.

Behind the sergeant came all the invalids, who ranked themselves in face

of the convicts. What they asked the sergeant to do frightened the man

out of his wits almost, but he dared not refuse to go and report to the

Major, for if the convicts mutinied, God only knows what might happen.

All the men set over us showed themselves great poltroons in handling

the prisoners; then, even if nothing further worse happened, if the

convicts thought better of it and dispersed, the sub-officer was still

in duty bound to inform the authorities of what had been going on. Pale,

and trembling with fright, he went headlong to the Major, without even

an effort to bring the convicts to reason. He saw that they were not

minded to put up with any of his talk, no doubt.

Without the least idea of what was going on, I went into rank myself

(it was only later that I heard the earlier details of the story). I

thought that the muster-roll was to be called, but I did not see the

soldiers who verify the lists, so I was surprised, and began to look

about me a little. The men’s faces were working with emotion, and some

were ghostly pale. They were sternly silent, and seemed to be thinking

of what they should say to the Major. I observed that many of the

convicts seemed to wonder at seeing me among them, but they turned their

glances away from me. No doubt they thought it strange that I should

come into the ranks with them, and join in their remonstrances, and

could not quite believe it. Then they turned round to me again in a

questioning sort of way.

“What are you doing here?” said Vassili Antonoff, in a loud, rude voice;

he happened to be close to me, and a little way from the rest; the man

had always hitherto been scrupulously polite to me.

I looked at him in perplexity, trying to understand what he meant by it;

I began to see that something extraordinary was up in our prison.

“Yes, indeed, what are you about here? Go off into the barrack,” said a

young fellow, a soldier-convict, whom I did not know till then, and who

was a good, quiet lad, “this is none of _your_ business.”

“Have we not fallen into rank,” I answered, “aren’t we going to be

mustered?”

“Why, _he’s_ come, too,” cried one of them.

“Iron-nose,”[7] said another.

“Fly-killer,” added a third, with inexpressible contempt for me in his

tone. This new nickname caused a general burst of laughter.

“These fellows are in clover everywhere. We are in prison, with hard

labour, I rather fancy; they get wheat-bread and sucking-pig, like great

lords as they are. Don’t you get your victuals by yourself? What are you

doing here?”

“Your place is not here,” said Koulikoff to me brusquely, taking me by

the hand and leading me out of the ranks.

He was himself very pale; his dark eyes sparkled with fire, he had

bitten his under lip till the blood came; he wasn’t one of those who

expected the Major without losing self-possession.

I liked to look at Koulikoff when he was in trying circumstances like

these; then he showed himself just what he was in his strong points and

weak. He attitudinised, but he knew how to act, too. I think he would

have gone to his death with a certain affected elegance. While everybody

was insulting me in words and tones, his politeness was greater than

ever; but he spoke in a firm and resolved tone which admitted of no

reply.

“We are here on business of our own, Alexander Petrovitch, and you’ve

got to keep out of it. Go where you like and wait till it’s over ...

here, your people are in the kitchens, go there.”

“They’re in hot quarters down there.”

I did in fact see our Poles at the open window of the kitchen, in

company with a good many other convicts. I did not well know what to be

at; but went there followed by laughter, insulting remarks, and that

sort of muttered growling which is the prison substitute for the

hissings and cat-calls of the world of freedom.

“He doesn’t like it at all! Chu, chu, chu! Seize him!”

I had never been so bitterly insulted since I was in the place. It was a

very painful moment, but just what was to be expected in the excessive

excitement the men were labouring under. In the ante-room I met T--vski,

a young nobleman of not much information, but of firm, generous

character; the convicts excepted him from the hatred they felt for the

convicts of noble birth; they were almost fond of him; every one of his

gestures denoted the brave and energetic man.

“What are you about, Goriantchikoff?” he cried to me; “come here, come

here!”

“But what is _it_ all about?”

“They are going to make a formal complaint, don’t you know it? It won’t

do them a bit of good; who’ll pay any attention to convicts? They’ll try

to find out the ringleaders, and if we are among them they’ll lay it all

on us. Just remember what we have been transported for. They’ll only get

a whipping, but we shall be put regularly to trial. The Major detests us

all, and will be only too happy to ruin us; all his sins will fall on

our shoulders.”

“The convicts would tie us hands and feet and sell us directly,” added

M--tski, when we got into the kitchen.

“They’ll never have mercy on _us_,” added T--vski.

Besides the nobles there were in the kitchen about thirty other

prisoners who did not want to join in the general complaints, some

because they were afraid, others because of their conviction that the

whole proceeding would prove quite useless. Akim Akimitch, who was a

decided opponent of everything that savoured of complaint, or that could

interfere with discipline and the usual routine, waited with great

phlegm to see the end of the business, about which he did not care a

jot. He was perfectly convinced that the authorities would put it all

down immediately.

Isaiah Fomitch’s nose drooped visibly as he listened in a sort of

frightened curiosity to what we said about the affair; he was much

disturbed. With the Polish nobles were some inferior persons of the same

nation, as well as some Russians, timid, dull, silent fellows, who had

not dared to join the rest, and who waited in a melancholy way to see

what the issue would be. There were also some morose, discontented

convicts, who remained in the kitchen, not because they were afraid, but

that they thought this half-revolt an absurdity which could not

succeed; it seemed to me that these were not a little disturbed, and

their faces were quite unsteady. They saw clearly that they were in the

right, and that the issue of the movement would be what they had

foretold, but they had a sort of feeling that they were traitors who had

sold their comrades to the Major. Jolkin--the long-headed Siberian

peasant sent to hard labour for coining, the man who got Koulikoff’s

town practice from him--was there also, as well as the old man of

Starodoub. None of the cooks had left their post, perhaps because they

looked upon themselves as belonging specially to the authorities of the

place, whom it would be unbecoming, therefore, to join in opposing.

“For all that,” said I to M--tski, “except these fellows, all the

convicts are in it,” and no doubt I said it in a way that showed

misgivings.

“I wonder what in the world _we_ have to do with it?” growled B----.

“We should have risked a good deal more than they had we gone with them;

and why? _Je hais ces brigands._[8] Why, do you think that they’ll bring

themselves up to the scratch after all? I can’t see what they want

putting their heads in the lion’s mouth, the fools.”

“It’ll all come to nothing,” said some one, an obstinate, sour-tempered

old fellow. Almazoff, who was with us too, agreed heartily in this.

“Some fifty of them will get a good beating, and that’s all the good

they’ll all get out of it.”

“Here’s the Major!” cried one; everybody ran to the windows.

The Major had come up, spectacles and all, looking as wicked as might

be, towering with passion, red as a turkey-cock. He came on without a

word, and in a determined manner, right up to the line of the convicts.

In conjunctures of this sort he showed uncommon pluck and presence of

mind; but it ought not to be overlooked that he was nearly always

half-seas over. Just then his greasy cap, with its yellow border, and

his tarnished silver epaulettes, gave him a Mephistophelic look in my

excited fancy. Behind him came the quartermaster, Diatloff, who was

quite a personage in the establishment, for he was really at the bottom

of all the authorities did. He was an exceedingly capable and cunning

fellow, and wielded great influence with the Major. He was not by any

means a bad sort of man, and the convicts were, in a general way, not

ill-inclined towards him. Our sergeant followed him with three or four

soldiers, no more; he had already had a tremendous wigging, and there

was plenty more of the same to come, if he knew it. The convicts, who

had remained uncovered, cap in hand, from the moment they sent for the

Major, stiffened themselves, every man shifting his weight to the other

leg; then they remained motionless, and waited for the first word, or

the first shout rather, to come from him.

They had not long to wait. Before he had got more than one word out, the

Major began to shout at the top of his voice; he was beside himself with

rage. We saw him from the windows running all along the line of

convicts, dashing at them here and there with angry questions. As we

were a pretty good distance off, we could not hear what he said or their

replies. We only heard his shouts, or rather what seemed shouting,

groaning, and grunting beautifully mingled.

“Scoundrels! mutineers! to the cat with ye! Whips and sticks! The

ringleaders? _You’re_ one of the ringleaders!” throwing himself on one

of them.

We did not hear the answer; but a minute after we saw this convict leave

the ranks and make for the guard-house.

Another followed, then a third.

“I’ll have you up, every man of you. I’ll---- Who’s in the kitchen

there?” he bawled, as he saw us at the open windows. “Here with all of

you! Drive ’em all out, every man!”

Diatloff, the quartermaster, came towards the kitchens. When we had

told him that _we_ were not complaining of any grievance, he returned,

and reported to the Major at once.

“Ah, those fellows are not in it,” said he, lowering his tone a bit, and

much pleased. “Never mind, bring them along here.”

We left the kitchen. I could not help feeling humiliation; all of us

went along with our heads down.

“Ah, Prokofief! Jolkin too; and you, Almazof! Here, come here, all the

lump of you!” cried the Major to us, with a gasp; but he was somewhat

softened, his tone was even obliging. “M--tski, you’re here too?... Take

down the names. Diatloff, take down all the names, the grumblers in one

list and the contented ones in another--all, without exception; you’ll

give me the list. I’ll have you all before the Committee of

Superintendence.... I’ll ... brigands!”

This word “_list_” told.

“We’ve nothing to complain of!” cried one of the malcontents, in a

half-strangled sort of voice.

“Ah, you’ve nothing to complain of! _Who’s_ that? Let all those who have

nothing to complain of step out of the ranks.”

“All of us, all of us!” came from some others.

“Ah, the food is all right, then? You’ve been put up to it. Ringleaders,

mutineers, eh? So much the worse for them.”

“But, what do you mean by that?” came from a voice in the crowd.

“Where is the fellow that said that?” roared the Major, throwing himself

to where the voice came from. “It was you, Rastorgouïef, you; to the

guard-house with you.”

Rastorgouïef, a young, chubby fellow of high stature, left the ranks and

went with slow steps to the guard-house. It was not he who had said it,

but, as he was called out, he did not venture to contradict.

“You fellows are too fat, that’s what makes you unruly!” shouted the

Major. “You wait, you hulking rascal, in three days you’d---- Wait! I’ll

have it out with you all. Let all those who have nothing to complain of

come out of the ranks, I say----”

“We’re not complaining of anything, your worship,” said some of the

convicts with a sombre air; the rest preserved an obstinate silence. But

the Major wanted nothing further; it was his interest to stop the thing

with as little friction as might be.

“Ah, _now_ I see! _Nobody_ has anything to complain of,” said he. “I

knew it, I saw it all. It’s ringleaders, there are ringleaders, by God,”

he went on, speaking to Diatloff. “We must lay our hands on them, every

man of them. And now--now--it’s time to go to your work. Drummer, there;

drummer, a roll!”

He told them off himself in small detachments. The convicts dispersed

sadly and silently, only too glad to get out of his sight. Immediately

after the gangs went off, the Major betook himself to the guard-house,

where he began to make his dispositions as to the “ringleaders,” but he

did not push matters far. It was easy to see that he wanted to be done

with the whole business as soon as possible. One of the men charged told

us later that he had begged for forgiveness, and that the officer had

let him go immediately. There can be no doubt that our Major did not

feel firm in the saddle; he had had a fright, I fancy, for a mutiny is

always a ticklish thing, and although this complaint of the convicts

about the food did not amount really to mutiny (only the Major had been

reported to about it, and the Governor himself), yet it was an

uncomfortable and dangerous affair. What gave him most anxiety was that

the prisoners had been unanimous in their movement, so their discontent

had to be got over somehow, at any price. The ringleaders were soon set

free. Next day the food was passable, but this improvement did not last

long; on the days ensuing the disturbance, the Major went about the

prison much more than usual, and always found something irregular to be

stopped and punished. Our sergeant came and went in a puzzled, dazed

sort of way, as if he could not get over his stupefaction at what had

happened. As to the convicts, it took long for them to quiet down again,

but their agitation seemed to wear quite a different character; they

were restless and perplexed. Some went about with their heads down,

without saying a word; others discussed the event in a grumbling,

helpless kind of way. A good many said biting things about their own

proceedings as though they were quite out of conceit with themselves.

“I say, pal, take and eat!” said one.

“Where’s the mouse that was so ready to bell the cat?”

“Let’s think ourselves lucky that he did not have us all well beaten.”

“It would be a good deal better if you thought more and chattered less.”

“What do _you_ mean by lecturing me? Are you schoolmaster here, I’d like

to know?”

“Oh, you want putting to the right-about.”

“Who are you, I’d like to know?”

“I’m a man! What are you?”

“A man! You’re----”

“You’re----”

“I say! Shut up, do! What’s the good of all this row?” was the cry from

all sides.

On the evening of the day the “mutiny” took place, I met Petroff behind

the barracks after the day’s work. He was looking for me. As he came

near me, I heard him exclaim something, which I didn’t understand, in a

muttering sort of way; then he said no more, and walked by my side in a

listless, mechanical fashion.

“I say, Petroff, your fellows are not vexed with us, are they?”

“Who’s vexed?” he asked, as if coming to himself.

“The convicts with us--with us nobles.”

“Why should they be vexed?”

“Well, because we did not back them up.”

“Oh, why should you have kicked up a dust?” he answered, as if trying to

enter into my meaning: “you have a table to yourselves, you fellows.”

“Oh, well, there are some of you, not nobles, who don’t eat the

regulation food, and who went in with you. We ought to back you up,

we’re in the same place; we ought to be comrades.”

“Oh, I _say_. Are you our comrades?” he asked, with unfeigned

astonishment.

I looked at him; it was clear that he had not the least comprehension of

my meaning; but I, on the other hand, entered only too thoroughly into

his. I saw now, quite thoroughly, something of which I had before only a

confused idea; what I had before guessed at was now sad certainty.

It was forced on my perceptions that any sort of real fellowship between

the convicts and myself could never be; not even were I to remain in the

place as long as life should last. I was a convict of the “special

section,” a creature for ever apart. The expression of Petroff when he

said, “are we comrades, how can that be?” remains, and will always

remain before my eyes. There was a look of such frank, naïve surprise in

it, such ingenuous astonishment that I could not help asking myself if

there was not some lurking irony in the man, just a little spiteful

mockery. Not at all, it was simply meant. I was not their comrade, and

could not be; that was all. Go you to the right, we’ll go to the left!

your business is yours, ours is ours.

I really fancied that, after the mutiny, they would attack us

mercilessly so far as they dared and could, and that our life would

become a hell. But nothing of the sort happened; we did not hear the

slightest reproach, there was not even an unpleasant allusion to what

had happened, it was all simply passed over. They went on teasing us as

before when opportunity served, no more. Nobody seemed to bear malice

against those who would not join in, but remained in the kitchens, or

against those who were the first to cry out that they had nothing to

complain of. It was all passed over without a word, to my exceeding

astonishment.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] An insulting phrase which is untranslatable.

[8] French in the original Russian.