THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Федор Достоевский

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      CHAPTER IV

      FIRST IMPRESSIONS (continued)

       Table of Contents

       Hardly had M. cki, the Pole to whom I had been

      speaking, gone out when Gazin, completely drunk, threw himself all in a heap into the kitchen.

      To see a convict drunk in the middle of the day, when everyone was about to be sent out to work, and considering the well-known severity of the governor, who at any moment might visit the barracks; the watchfulness of the under-officer, who never left the prison; the presence of the old soldiers and the sentinels; all this quite upset the ideas I had formed of our prison. A long time passed before I was able to understand and explain to myself the effects, which in the first instance were indeed strange.

      I have already said that all convicts had a private occupation, and that this occupation was for them a natural and imperious one. They are passionately fond of money, and think more of it than of anything else-almost as much as of liberty. A convict is half-consoled if he can ring a few kopecks in his pocket. On the contrary, he is sad, restless, and despondent if he has no money. He is ready then to commit no matter what crime in order to get some. Nevertheless, in spite of its importance in convicts’ eyes, money does not remain long in their pockets. It is difficult to keep it. Sometimes it is confiscated, sometimes stolen. When the governor, on one of his sudden raids, discovered a small sum that had been amassed with great trouble, he confiscated it. It may be that he laid it out in improving the food of the prisoners, for all money taken from them went into his hands. But generally speaking it was stolen. A means of preserving it was however, discovered. An old man from Starodoub, one of the Old Believers, took upon himself to conceal the convicts savings.

      I cannot resist the desire to say a few words about this man, although it will interrupt my narrative. He was about sixty years old, thin, and growing very grey. He excited my curiosity the first time I saw him, for he was not like any of the others; his look was so tranquil and mild, and I always saw with pleasure his clear and limpid eyes, surrounded by a number of little wrinkles. I often talked with him, and rarely have I met with so kind, so benevolent a being. He had been condemned to hard labour for a serious crime. A certain number of the Old Believers at Starodoub had been converted to the orthodox religion. The Government had done everything to encourage them, and, at the same time, to convert the remaining dissenters. This old man and some other fanatics had resolved to ‘defend the faith.’ When the Orthodox church was being constructed in their town they set fire to the building, and this offence had brought upon its author the sentence of deportation. This well-to-do shopkeeper-he was in trade-had left a wife and family whom he loved, and had gone off courageously into exile, believing in his ignorance that he was ‘suffering for the faith.’

      When one had lived some time by the side of this kind old man, one could not help asking the question, How could he have rebelled? I spoke to him several times about his faith. He gave up none of his convictions, but in his answers I never noticed the slightest hatred; and yet he had destroyed a church, and was far from denying it. In his view, the offence he had committed and his martyrdom were things to be proud of.

      There were other Old Believers among the convicts-Siberians for the most partmen of well-developed intelligence, and as cunning as all peasants. Dialecticians in their way, they followed blindly their law, and delighted in discussing it. But they had great faults: they were haughty, proud, and very intolerant. The old man in no way resembled them. With far more belief in religious exposition than others of the same faith, he avoided all controversy. As he was of a gay and expansive disposition he often laughed-not with the coarse cynical laugh of the other convicts, but with a clarity and simplicity in which there was something of the child, and which harmonized perfectly with his grey head. I may perhaps be wrong, but it seems to me that a man’s character may be recognized by his mere laugh. If you know a man whose laugh inspires you with sympathy, be assured he is an honest man.

      The old fellow had won the respect of all the prisoner! without exception; but he was not proud of it. They called him grandad, and he took no offence. I thus understood what an influence he must have exercised on his co-religionists.

      In spite of the fortitude with which he endured prison life, one felt that he was tormented by a profound, incurable melancholy. I slept in the same barrack with him. One night, towards three o’clock in the morning, I woke up and heard a slow, stifled sob. The old man was sitting on the stove-the same place where the convict who had wished to kill the governor used to pray-and was reading from his manuscript prayer-book. As he wept I heard him repeating ‘Lord, do not forsake me. Master, strengthen me. My poor little children, my dear little children, we shall never see one another again.’ I cannot say how much this moved me.

      We used, then, to entrust our money to this old man. Heaven knows how the idea got abroad in our barrack that he could not be robbed. It was well known that he hid the savings deposited with him, but no one had been able to discover where. He revealed it to us-to the Poles and myself. One of the stakes in the palisade bore a branch which appeared to belong to it, but which could be removed and put back again. When it was removed a hole could be seen, and this was his hiding-place.

      But to return to my story. Why is it that a convict never saves his money? Well, not only is it difficult for him to keep it, but prison life is so miserable that a man, of his very nature, thirsts for freedom of action. His position in society makes him so irregular a being that the idea of swallowing up his capital in orgies, of intoxicating himself with revelry seems to him quite natural if only he can procure himself one moment’s forgetfulness. It was strange to see certain individuals bent over their labour with the sole object of spending their earnings in a single day, even to the last kopeck. Then they would set to work again until they could afford another debauch, which was looked forward to months beforehand.

      Some convicts were fond of new clothes, more or less singular in style, such as fancy trousers and waistcoats; but it was above all for coloured shirts that they had a pronounced taste; also for belts with metal clasps.

      On holidays the prison dandies wore their Sunday best. They were worth seeing as they strutted about their part of the barracks. Their pleasure in feeling themselves well dressed amounted to childishness; indeed, in many things convicts are only children. Their fine clothes, however, disappeared very soon, often in the evening of the very day on which they had been bought. Their owners pledged them or sold them again for a trifle.

      Merrymaking generally took place at fixed times. It coincided with religious festivals, or with the nameday of some bibulous convict. On getting up in the morning he would place a wax taper before the ikon; then he said his prayers, dressed, and ordered his dinner. He had previously bought meat, fish, and little patties, which he gorged like an ox and almost always alone. It was very rare to see one convict invite another to share his repast. At dinner vodka was produced. The convict would suck it up like the sole of a boot, and then walk through the barracks swaggering and tottering. He was anxious to show his companions that although he was drunk* he was carrying on, and thus obtain their particular esteem.

      The Russians always feel a measure of sympathy for a drunken man; among us it amounted really to esteem. In prison intoxication was regarded as a sort of aristocratic distinction.

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