Bab Bab 9 · NEW ACQUAINTANCES--PETROFF
Time went on, and little by little I accustomed myself to my new life.
The scenes I had daily before me no longer afflicted me so much. In a
word, the convict prison, its inhabitants, and its manners, left me
indifferent. To get reconciled to this life was impossible, but I had to
accept it as an inevitable fact. I had driven entirely away from me all
the anxiety by which I had at first been troubled. I no longer wandered
through the convict prison like a lost soul, and no longer allowed
myself to be subjugated by my anxiety. The wild curiosity of the
convicts had had its edge taken off, and I was no longer looked upon
with that affectation or insolence previously displayed. They had become
indifferent to me, and I was very glad of it. I began to feel at home in
the barracks. I knew where to go and sleep at night; gradually I became
accustomed to things the very idea of which would formerly have been
repugnant to me. I went every week regularly to have my head shaved. We
were called every Saturday one after another to the guard-house. The
regimental barbers lathered our skulls with cold water and soap, and
scraped us afterwards with their saw-like razors.
Merely the thought of this torture gives me a shudder. I soon found a
remedy for it--Akim Akimitch pointed it out to me--a prisoner in the
military section who for one kopeck shaved those who paid for it with
his own razor. This was his trade. Many of the prisoners were his
customers merely to avoid the military barbers, yet these were not men
of weak nerves. Our barber was called the “major,” why, I cannot say. As
far as I know he possessed no points of resemblance with any major. As I
write these lines I see clearly before me the “major” and his thin face.
He was a tall fellow, silent, rather stupid, absorbed entirely by his
business; he was never to be seen without a strop in his hand, on which
day and night he sharpened a razor, which was always in admirable
condition. He had certainly made this work the supreme object of his
life; he was really happy when his razor was quite sharp and his
services were in request; his soap was always warm, and he had a very
light hand--a hand of velvet. He was proud of his skill, and used to
take with a careless air the kopeck he received; one might have thought
that he worked from love of his art, and not in order to gain money.
A----f was soundly corrected by our real Major one day, because he had
the misfortune to say the “major” when he was speaking of the barber who
shaved him. The real Major was in a violent rage.
“Blackguard,” he cried, “do you know what a major is?” and according to
his habit he shook A----f violently. “The idea of calling a scoundrel of
a convict a ‘major’ in my presence.”
From the first day of my imprisonment I began to dream of my liberation.
My favourite occupation was to count thousands and thousands of times in
a thousand different manners the number of days that I should have to
pass in prison. I thought of that only, and every one deprived of his
liberty for a fixed time does the same; of that I am certain. I cannot
say that all the convicts had the same degree of hopefulness, but their
sanguine character often astonished me. The hopefulness of a prisoner
differs essentially from that of a free man. The latter may desire an
amelioration in his position, or a realisation of some enterprise which
he has undertaken, but meanwhile he lives, he acts; he is swept away in
the whirlwind of real life. Nothing of the kind takes place in the case
of the convict for life. He lives also in a way, but not being condemned
to a fixed number of years, he takes a vaguer view of his situation than
the one who is imprisoned for a definite term. The man condemned for a
comparatively short period feels that he is not at home; he looks upon
himself, so to say, as on a visit; he regards the twenty years of his
punishment as two years at most; he is sure that at fifty, when he has
finished his sentence, he will be as young and as lively as at
thirty-five. “We have time before us,” he thinks, and he strives
obstinately to dispel discouraging thoughts. Even a man sentenced for
life thinks that some day an order may arrive from St.
Petersburg--“Transport such a one to the mines at Nertchinsk and fix a
term for his detention.” It would be famous, first because it takes six
months to get to Nertchinsk, and the life on the road is a hundred times
preferable to the convict prison. He would finish his time at
Nertchinsk, and then--more than one gray-haired old man speculates in
this way.
At Tobolsk I have seen men fastened to the wall by a chain about two
yards long; by their side they have their bed. They are thus chained for
some terrible crime committed after their transportation to Siberia;
they are kept chained up for five, ten years. They are nearly all
brigands, and I only saw one of them who looked like a man of good
breeding; he had been in some branch of the Civil Service, and spoke in
a soft, lisping way; his smile was sweet but sickly; he showed us his
chain, and pointed out to us the most convenient way of lying down. He
must have been a nice person! All these poor wretches are perfectly
well-behaved; they all seem satisfied, and yet their desire to finish
their period of chains devours them. Why? it will be asked. Because then
they will leave their low, damp, stifling cells for the court-yard of
the convict prison, that is all. These last places of confinement they
will never leave; they know that those who have once been chained up
will never be liberated, and they will die in irons. They know all this,
and yet they are very anxious to be no longer chained up. Without this
hope could they remain five or six years fastened to a wall, and not die
or go mad?
I soon understood that work alone could save me, by fortifying my health
and my body, whereas incessant restlessness of mind, nervous irritation,
and the close air of the barracks would ruin them completely. I should
go out vigorous and full of elasticity. I did not deceive myself, work
and movement were very useful to me.
I saw one of my comrades, to my terror, melt away like a piece of wax;
and yet, when he was with me in the convict prison, he was young,
handsome, and vigorous; when he left his health was ruined, and his legs
could no longer support him. His chest, too, was oppressed by asthma.
“No,” I said to myself, as I gazed upon him; “I wish to live, and I will
live.”
My love for work exposed me in the first place to the contempt and
bitter laughter of my comrades; but I paid no attention to them, and
went away with a light heart wherever I was sent. Sometimes, for
instance, to break and pound alabaster. This work, the first that was
given to me, is easy. The engineers did their utmost to lighten the
task-work of all the gentlemen; this was not indulgence, but simple
justice. Would it not have been strange to require the same work from a
labourer as from a man whose strength was less by half, and who had
never worked with his hands? But we were not “spoilt” in this way for
ever, and we were only spared in secret, for we were severely watched.
As real severe work was by no means rare, it often happened that the
task given to us was beyond the strength of the gentlemen, who thus
suffered twice as much as their comrades.
Generally three or four men were sent to pound the alabaster, and
nearly always old men or feeble ones were chosen. We were of the latter
class. A man skilled in this particular kind of work was sent with us.
For several years it was always the same man, Almazoff by name. He was
severe, already in years, sunburnt, and very thin, by no means
communicative, moreover, and difficult to get on with. He despised us
profoundly; but he was of such a reserved disposition that he never
broke it sufficient to call us names. The shed in which we calcined the
alabaster was built on a sloping and deserted bank of the river. In
winter, on a foggy day, the view was sad, both on the river and on the
opposite shore, even to a great distance. There was something
heartrending in this dull, naked landscape, but it was still sadder when
a brilliant sun shone above the boundless white plain. How one would
have liked to fly away beyond this steppe, which began on the opposite
shore and stretched out for fifteen hundred versts to the south like an
immense table-cloth.
Almazoff went to work silently, with a disagreeable air. We were ashamed
not to be able to help him more effectually, but he managed to do his
work without our assistance, and seemed to wish to make us understand
that we were acting unjustly towards him, and that we ought to repent
our uselessness. Our work consisted in heating the oven in order to
calcine the alabaster that we had got together in a heap.
The day following, when the alabaster was entirely calcined, we turned
it out. Each one filled a box of alabaster, which he afterwards crushed.
This work was not disagreeable. The fragile alabaster soon became a
white, brilliant dust. We brandished our heavy hammers, and dealt such
formidable blows, that we admired our own strength. When we were tired
we felt lighter, our cheeks were red, the blood circulated more rapidly
in our veins. Almazoff would then look at us in a condescending manner,
as he would have looked at little children. He smoked his pipe with an
indulgent air, unable, however, to prevent himself from grumbling. When
he opened his mouth he was never otherwise, and he was the same with
every one. At bottom I believe he was a kind man.
They gave me another kind of labour, which consisted in working the
turning wheel. This wheel was high and heavy, and great efforts were
necessary to make it go round, above all when the workmen from the
workshop of the engineers used to make the balustrade of a staircase or
the foot of a large table, which required almost the whole trunk. No one
man could have done the work alone. To two convicts, B---- (formerly
gentleman) and myself, this work was given nearly always for several
years, whenever there was anything to turn. B---- was weak, even still
young, and somewhat sympathetic. He had been sent to prison a year
before me, with two companions who were also of noble birth. One of
them, an old man, used to pray day and night. The prisoners respected
him greatly for it. He died in prison. The other one was quite a young
man, fresh-coloured, strong, and courageous. He had carried his
companion B---- for several hundred versts, seeing that at the end of
the first half-stage he had fallen down from fatigue. Their friendship
for one another was something to see.
B---- was a perfectly well-bred man, of noble and generous disposition,
but spoiled and irritated by illness. We used to turn the wheel well
together, and the work interested us. As for me, I found the exercise
most salutary.
I was very--too--fond of shovelling away the snow, which we generally
did after the hurricanes, so frequent in the winter. When the hurricane
had been raging for an entire day, more than one house would be buried
up to the windows, even if it was not covered over entirely. The
hurricane ceased, the sun reappeared, and we were ordered to disengage
the houses, barricaded as they were by heaps of snow.
We were sent in large bands, sometimes the whole of the convicts
together. Each of us received a shovel and had an appointed task to do,
which it sometimes seemed impossible to get through. But we all went to
work with a good-will. The light dust-like snow had not yet congealed,
and was frozen only on the surface. We removed it in enormous
shovelfuls, which were dispersed around us. In the air the snow-dust was
as brilliant as diamonds. The shovel sank easily into the white
glittering mass. The convicts did this work almost always with gaiety,
the cold winter air and the exercise animated them. Every one felt
himself in better spirits, laughter and jokes were heard, snowballs were
exchanged, which after a time excited the indignation of the
serious-minded convicts, who liked neither laughter nor gaiety.
Accordingly these scenes finished almost always in showers of insults.
Little by little the circle of my acquaintances increased, although I
never thought of making new ones. I was always restless, morose, and
mistrustful. Acquaintances, however, were made involuntarily. The first
who came to visit me was the convict Petroff. I say visit, and I retain
the word, for he lived in the special division which was at the farthest
end of the barracks from mine. It seemed as if no relations could exist
between him and me, for we had nothing in common.
Nevertheless, during the first period of my stay, Petroff thought it his
duty to come towards me nearly every day, or at least to stop me when,
after work, I went for a stroll at the back of the barracks as far as
possible from observation. His persistence was disagreeable to me; but
he managed so well that his visits became at last a pleasing diversion,
although he was by no means of a communicative disposition. He was
short, strongly built, agile, and skilful. He had rather an agreeable
voice, and high cheek-bones, a bold look, and white, regular teeth. He
had always a quid of tobacco in his mouth between the lower lip and the
gums. Many of the convicts had the habit of chewing. He seemed to me
younger than he really was, for he did not appear to be more than
thirty, and he was really forty. He spoke to me without any ceremony,
and behaved to me on a footing of equality with civility and attention.
If, for instance, he saw that I wished to be alone, he would talk to me
for about two minutes and then go away. He thanked me, moreover, each
time for my kindness in conversing with him, which he never did to any
one else. I must add that his relations underwent no change not only
during the first period of my story, but for several years, and that
they never became more intimate, although he was really my friend. I
never could say exactly what he looked for in my society, nor why he
came every day to see me. He robbed me sometimes, but almost
involuntarily. He never came to me to borrow money; so that what
attracted him was not personal interest.
It seemed to me, I know not why, that this man did not live in the same
prison with me, but in another house in the town, far away. It appeared
as though he had come to the convict prison by chance in order to pick
up news, to inquire for me, in short, to see how I was getting on. He
was always in a hurry, as though he had left some one for a moment who
was waiting for him, or as if he had given up for a time some matter of
business. And yet he never hurried himself. His look was strongly fixed,
with a slight air of levity and irony. He had a habit of looking into
the distance above the objects near him, as though he were endeavouring
to distinguish something behind the person to whom he was talking. He
always seemed absent-minded. I sometimes asked myself where he went when
he left me, where could Petroff be so anxiously expected? He would
simply go with a light step to one of the barracks or to the kitchen,
and sit down to hear the conversation. He listened attentively, and
joined in with animation; after which he would suddenly become silent.
But whether he spoke or kept silent, one could always see on his
countenance that he had business somewhere else, and that some one was
waiting for him in the town, not very far away. The most astonishing
thing was that he never had any business--apart, of course, from the
hard labour assigned to him. He knew no trade, and had scarcely ever any
money. But that did not seem to grieve him. Why did he speak to me? His
conversation was as strange as he himself was singular. When he noticed
that I was walking alone at the back of the barracks he made a stand,
and turned towards me. He walked very fast, and when I turned he was
suddenly on his heel. He approached me walking, but so quickly that he
seemed to be going at a run.
“Good-morning.”
“Good-morning.”
“I am not disturbing you?”
“No.”
“I wish to ask you something about Napoleon. I wanted to ask you if he
is not a relation of the one who came to us in the year 1812.”
Petroff was a soldier’s son, and knew how to read and write.
“Of course he is.”
“People say he is President. What President--and of what?”
His questions were always rapid and abrupt, as though he wished to know
as soon as possible what he asked. I explained to him of what Napoleon
was President, and I added that perhaps he would become Emperor.
“How will that be?”
I explained it to him as well as I could; Petroff listened with
attention. He understood perfectly all I told him, and added, as he
leant his ear towards me:
“Hem! Ah, I wished to ask you, Alexander Petrovitch, if there are really
monkeys who have hands instead of feet, and are as tall as a man?”
“Yes.”
“What are they like?”
I described them to him, and told him what I knew on the subject.
“And where do they live?”
“In warm climates. There are some to be found in the island of
Sumatra.”
“Is that in America? I have heard that people there walk with their
heads downwards.”
“No, no; you are thinking of the Antipodes.” I explained to him as well
as I could what America was, and what the Antipodes. He listened to me
as attentively as if the question of the Antipodes had alone caused him
to approach me.
“Ah, ah! I read last year the story of the Countess de la Vallière.
Arevieff had bought this book from the Adjutant. Is it true or is it an
invention? The work is by Dumas.”
“It is an invention, no doubt.”
“Ah, indeed. Good-bye. I am much obliged to you.”
And Petroff disappeared. The above may be taken as a specimen of our
ordinary conversation.
I made inquiries about him. M---- thought he had better speak to me on
the subject, when he learnt what an acquaintance I had made. He told me
that many convicts had excited his horror on their arrival; but not one
of them, not even Gazin, had produced upon him such a frightful
impression as this Petroff.
“He is the most resolute, most to be feared of all the convicts,” said
M----. “He is capable of anything, nothing stops him if he has a
caprice. He will assassinate you, if the fancy takes him, without
hesitation and without the least remorse. I often think he is not in his
right senses.”
This declaration interested me extremely; but M---- was never able to
tell me why he had such an opinion of Petroff. Strangely enough, for
many years together I saw this man and talked with him nearly every day.
He was always my sincere friend, though I could not at the time tell
why, and during the whole time he lived very quietly, and did nothing
extreme. I am moreover convinced that M---- was right, and that he was
perhaps a most intrepid man and the most difficult to restrain in the
whole prison. And why so, I can scarcely explain.
This Petroff was that very convict who, when he was called up to receive
his punishment, had wished to kill the Major. I have told you the latter
was saved by a miracle--that he had gone away one minute before the
punishment was inflicted.
Once when he was still a soldier--before his arrival at the convict
prison--his Colonel had struck him on parade. Probably he had often been
beaten before, but that day he was not in a humour to bear an insult, in
open day, before the battalion drawn up in line. He killed his Colonel.
I don’t know all the details of the story, for he never told it to me
himself. It must be understood that these explosions only took place
when the nature within him spoke too loudly, and these occasions were
rare; as a rule he was serious and even quiet. His strong, ardent
passions were not burnt out, but smouldering, like burning coals beneath
ashes.
I never noticed that he was vain, or given to bragging like so many
other convicts. He hardly ever quarrelled, but he was on friendly
relations with scarcely any one, except, perhaps, Sirotkin, and then
only when he had need of him. I saw him, however, one day seriously
irritated. Some one had offended him by refusing him something he
wanted. He was disputing on the point with a tall convict, as vigorous
as an athlete, named Vassili Antonoff, known for his nagging, spiteful
disposition. The man, however, who belonged to the class of civil
convicts, was far from being a coward. They shouted at one another for
some time, and I thought the quarrel would finish like so many others of
the same kind, by simple interchange of abuse. The affair took an
unexpected turn. Petroff only suddenly turned pale, his lips trembled,
and turned blue, his respiration became difficult. He got up, and
slowly, very slowly, and with imperceptible steps--he liked to walk
about with his feet naked--approached Antonoff; at once the noise of
shouting gave place to a death-like silence--a fly passing through the
air might have been heard--every one anxiously awaited the event.
Antonoff pointed to his adversary. His face was no longer human. I was
unable to endure the scene, and I left the prison. I was certain that
before I got to the staircase I should hear the shrieks of a man who was
being murdered; but nothing of the kind took place. Before Petroff had
succeeded in getting up to Antonoff, the latter threw him the object
which had caused the quarrel--a miserable rag, a worn-out piece of
lining.
Of course afterwards, Antonoff did not fail to call Petroff names,
merely as a matter of conscience, and from a feeling of what was right,
in order to show that he had not been too much afraid; but Petroff paid
no attention to his insults, he did not even answer him. Everything had
ended to his advantage, and the insults scarcely affected him; he was
glad to have got his piece of rag.
A quarter of an hour later he was strolling about the barracks quite
unoccupied, looking for some group whose conversation might possibly
gratify his curiosity. Everything seemed to interest him, and yet he
remained apparently indifferent to all he heard. He might have been
compared to a workman, a vigorous workman, whom the work fears; but who,
for the moment, has nothing to do, and condescends meanwhile to put out
his strength in playing with his children. I did not understand why he
remained in prison, why he did not escape. He would not have hesitated
to get away if he had really desired to do so. Reason has no power on
people like Petroff unless they are spurred on by will. When they desire
something there are no obstacles in their way. I am certain that he
would have been clever enough to escape, that he would have deceived
every one, that he would have remained for a time without eating, hid in
a forest, or in the bulrushes of the river; but the idea had evidently
not occurred to him. I never noticed in him much judgment or good sense.
People like him are born with one idea, which, without being aware of
it, pursues them all their life. They wander until they meet with some
object which apparently excites their desire, and then they do not mind
risking their head. I was sometimes astonished that a man who had
assassinated his Colonel for having been struck, would lie down without
opposition beneath the rods, for he was always flogged when he was
detected introducing spirits into the prison. Like all those who had no
settled occupation, he smuggled in spirits; then, if caught, he would
allow himself to be whipped as though he consented to the punishment,
and confessed himself in the wrong. Otherwise they would have killed him
rather than make him lie down. More than once I was astonished to see
that he was robbing me in spite of his affection for me; but he did so
from time to time. Thus he stole my Bible, which I had asked him to
carry to its place. He had only a few steps to go; but on his way he met
with a purchaser, to whom he sold the book, at once spending the money
he had received on vodka. Probably he felt that day a violent desire for
drink, and when he desired something it was necessary that he should
have it. A man like Petroff will assassinate any one for twenty-five
kopecks, simply to get himself a pint of vodka. On any other occasion he
will disdain hundreds and thousands of roubles. He told me the same
evening of the theft he had committed, but without showing the least
sign of repentance or confusion, in a perfectly indifferent tone, as
though he were speaking of an ordinary incident. I endeavoured to
reprove him as he deserved, for I regretted the loss of my Bible. He
listened to me without hesitation very calmly. He agreed that the Bible
was a very useful book, and sincerely regretted that I had it no longer;
but he was not for one moment sorry, though he had stolen it. He looked
at me with such assurance that I gave up scolding him. He bore my
reproaches because he thought I could not do otherwise than I was doing.
He knew that he ought to be punished for such an action, and
consequently thought I ought to abuse him for my own satisfaction, and
to console myself for my loss. But in his inner heart he considered
that it was all nonsense, to which a serious man ought to be ashamed to
descend. I believe even that he looked upon me as a child, an infant,
who does not yet understand the simplest things in the world. If I spoke
to him of anything, except books and matters of knowledge, he would
answer me, but only from politeness, and in laconic phrases. I wondered
what made him question me so much on the subject of books. I looked at
him carefully during our conversation to assure myself that he was not
laughing at me; but no, he listened seriously, and with an attention
which was genuine, though not always maintained. This latter
circumstance irritated me sometimes. The questions he put to me were
clear and precise, and he always seemed prepared for the answer. He had
made up his mind once for all that it was no use speaking to me as to
other matters, and that, apart from books, I understood nothing. I am
certain that he was attached to me, and much that fact astonished me;
but he looked upon me as a child, or as an imperfect man. He felt for me
that sort of compassion which every stronger being feels for a weaker;
he took me for--I do not know what he took me for. Although this
compassion did not prevent him from robbing me, I am sure that in doing
so he pitied me.
“What a strange person!” he must have said to himself, as he lay hands
on my property; “he does not even know how to take care of what he
possesses.” That, I think, is why he liked me. One day he said to me as
if involuntarily:
“You are too good-natured, you are so simple, so simple that one cannot
help pitying you. Do not be offended at what I was saying to you,
Alexander Petrovitch,” he added a minute afterwards, “it is not
ill-meant.”
People like Petroff will sometimes, in times of trouble and excitement,
manifest themselves in a forcible manner; then they find the kind of
activity which suits them; they are not men of words; they could not be
instigators and chiefs of insurrections, but they are the men who
execute and act; they act simply without any fuss, and run just to throw
themselves against an obstacle with bared breast, neither thinking nor
fearing. Every one follows them to the foot of the wall, where they
generally leave their life. I do not think Petroff can have ended well,
he was marked for a violent end; and if he is not yet dead, that only
means that the opportunity has not yet presented itself. Who knows,
however? He will, perhaps, die of extreme old age, quite quietly, after
having wandered through life, here and there, without an object; but I
believe M---- was right, and that Petroff was the most determined man in
the whole convict prison.