Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (206 page)

Holy Week came. The authorities presented each of us with an Easter egg and a small piece of wheaten bread. The townspeople loaded us with kindness. As at Christmas, there was the priest’s visitation with the cross, inspection by heads of departments, larded cabbage, general enlargement of soul, and unlimited lounging. The only difference was that one could now walk about in the courtyard, and warm oneself in the sun. Everything seemed filled with more light, larger than in winter, but also more fraught with sadness. The long, endless summer days seemed peculiarly unbearable on Church holidays. Work days seemed at least to pass more rapidly owing to the fatigue of labour.

Our tasks were now far more trying than in winter; they consisted principally in engineering work. Some of us were set to building, digging, bricklaying, or repairing Government premises, to locksmith’s work, carpentering, or painting. Others went into the brick-fields, and that was considered the hardest of all jobs. The brick-fields were situated about four versts from the prison, and throughout the summer a gang of fifty men set out every morning at six o’clock. This gang was chosen from workmen who had no special trade. We took with us a day’s ration of bread. The distance was too great for us to travel eight useless versts there and back simply in order to dine with the others, so we had a meal when we returned in the evening.

We were each told off to do a definite amount of work, but there was so much of it that one could scarcely, if ever, manage to get through it. First, we had to dig and carry the clay, moisten it, and mould it in the trough, and then make a goodly quantity of bricks, two hundred or so, and sometimes fifty more than that. I was only twice sent to the brick-field. Those detailed for the work used to come back in the evening dead tired; everyone complained that the others were slack and that he himself had had to do most of the work. I believe that they found some pleasure and consolation in these reproaches. Some, however, enjoyed the brick-field because it took them away from the town to the banks of the Irtych where the country was open and the sky shone overhead; the surroundings were more agreeable than those frightful Government buildings. They were quite free to smoke and to lie down for half an hour or so, which was delightful.

As for me, I was generally sent to one of the shops, or else to pound alabaster or to carry bricks, which last job I once did for two months on end. I had to carry my load of bricks from the river bank for a distance of about a hundred and forty yards, over the moat of the fortress to a barrack which they were putting up. This work suited me well enough, although the cord used for carrying bricks cut my shoulders; what particularly pleased me was that my strength sensibly increased. At first I could not carry more than eight bricks at once-each of them weighed about twelve pounds; but I was eventually able to carry twelve, or even fifteen, which afforded me great satisfaction. You wanted physical as well as moral strength to be able to support all the discomforts of that accursed life.

There was another consideration: I wanted, when I left the place, to be able really to live and not just exist. I took pleasure in carrying my bricks then; it was not merely that the work strengthened my body, but it took me so frequently to the banks of the Irtych. I refer to this spot: it was the only place where we saw God’s world-a pure and bright horizon, the free desert steppes whose bareness always made a strange impression on me. All the other work-yards were in the fortress itself, or in its immediate neighbourhood; and from the earliest days of my imprisonment I loathed the fortress, especially its surrounding buildings. The governor’s house seemed to me a repulsive, accursed place: I could never pass without turning upon it a look of detestation. But on the river-bank I could forget my miserable self as I gazed over the immense stretch of desert, just as a prisoner may do when he looks at the world of freedom through the barred window of his dungeon. Everything there was dear and gracious to my eyes: the sun shining in the infinite blue of heaven, the distant song of the Kirghiz that came from the opposite bank.

Sometimes I would stand for a long time watching the poor smoky cabin of some
baïgouch
;
I would study the bluish smoke as it curled in the air, the Kirghiz woman busy with her two sheep… The things I saw were wild, savage, poverty-stricken; but they were free. I would follow the flight of a bird threading its way in the pure transparent air; now it skims the water, now disappears in the azure sky, now suddenly comes to view again, a mere point in space. Even the poor little spring flower fading in a cleft of the bank fixed my attention and would draw my tears… The melancholy of that first year of prison life and its hard labour was unendurable. The anguish of it was so great, that I hardly noticed my immediate surroundings; I merely shut my eyes and would not see. Among the broken-down creatures with whom I was obliged to live, I had not yet recognized those who were capable of thinking and feeling in spite of their repulsive appearance. I never heard (or if one was spoken I was not aware of it) one kindly word amidst the constant hail of venom. Still, there was one such utterance, simple, straightforward, and pure in motive; it came from the heart of a man who had suffered and endured more than myself. But it is useless to enlarge on that.

The great fatigue which I suffered was a source of content, for it gave me hope of sound sleep. In summer sleep was a torment, more intolerable than the closeness and infection winter brought in its train. Some nights were certainly very beautiful. The sun, which had not ceased all day to flood the courtyard, hid itself at last. The air freshened, and night, the night of the steppe, became comparatively cool. The convicts, until it was time to lock them in, walked about in groups, especially on the kitchen side, for that was where questions of general interest were by preference discussed. Comments were exchanged upon rumours from the outside world, often absurd indeed, but always keenly exciting to these poor creatures cut off from their fellow men. For example, we suddenly hear that the governor has been summarily dismissed. Convicts are as credulous as children; they know the news to be false, or most unlikely, and that Kvassoff, who brings it, is a past master in the art of lying; for all that they clutch at the nonsensical story, exult over it, express their satisfaction, but at last are quite ashamed of having been duped by a man like Kvassoff.

‘I should like to know who’ll show
him
the door?’ cries one convict. ‘Don’t you fear, he’s a fellow who knows how to stick on.’

‘But,’ says another, ‘he has his superiors over him.’ This fellow is a warm controversialist and has seen the world.

‘Wolves don’t feed on one another,’ says a third gloomily, half to himself.
This
one’s an old fellow, growing grey; he always takes his sour cabbage soup into a corner and eats it there.’

‘Do you think his superiors will take
your
advice as to whether they should show him the door or not?’ adds a fourth, twanging his balalaika and seeming quite indifferent.

‘Well, why not?’ replied the second angrily. ‘If you
are
asked, answer what’s in your mind. But no, with us fellows it’s all mere talk, and when we ought to go to it with a will, we all slink away.’

‘That’s so!’ says the balalaika player. ‘What with hard labour and prison life that can’t be helped.’

‘It was like that the other day,’ says the second man, without having heard that last remark. ‘There was a little wheat left, sweepings, a mere nothing. There was some idea of turning the refuse into money. Well, look here, they took it to him, and he confiscated it. All economy, you see. Was that so, and was it right-yes or no?’

‘But to whom can you complain?’

‘To whom? Why, the inspector who’ll be here soon.’

‘What inspector?’

‘It’s true, pals, an inspector’s coming soon,’ said a young convict who had had a smattering of education, had read the
Duchesse de la Valliere
or some such book, and who had been quartermaster in a regiment. He was a bit of a wag, and was held in some sort of respect as a knowing fellow. Without paying the least attention to the exciting debate, he goes straight to the cook and asks him for some fiver. Our cooks often deal in victuals of that kind; they used to buy a whole liver, cut it in pieces, and sell it to the other convicts.

‘Two kopecks’ worth, or four?’ asks the cook.

‘A four-kopeck cut; I’ll eat, the others can watch me and feel hungry,’ he says… ‘Yes, pals,’ he resumes, ‘a general, a real general’s coming from Petersburg to inspect Siberia. It’s so, heard it at the governor’s place.’

This news produces an extraordinary effect. For a quarter of an hour they ask each other who this general can be? What’s his title? Whether his grade is higher than that of the generals in our town? The convicts delight in discussing ranks and degrees, in finding out who’s at the head of things, who can make the other officials crook their backs, and to whom he crooks his own, so they start an argument and quarrel about their generals. Curses fly, all in honour of these high officers-and there is fighting, too, sometimes. What interest can they possibly have in such things? When one hears convicts speaking of generals and high officials one begins to understand just how much intelligence they had when they were free. It cannot be concealed that in Russia, even in much higher circles, talk about generals and high officials is looked upon as the most serious and refined conversation.

‘Well, you see, they
have
given our governor the right about, don’t you?’ observes Kvassoff, a little rubicund, choleric, small-brained fellow.

‘He’ll just grease their palms for them,’ this in staccato tones from a morose old fellow in the corner who had finished his sour cabbage soup.

‘I should think he would grease their palms, by Jove,’ says another; ‘he’s stolen money enough, the scoundrel. And, think, he was only a major in the army before he came here. He’s feathered his nest. Why, a little while ago he was engaged to the head priest’s daughter.’

‘But he didn’t get married; they turned him off, and that shows he’s a poor specimen. A fine type to get engaged! He’s got nothing but the coat on his back. Last year, Easter time, he lost all he had at cards. Fedka told me so.’

‘Well, well, pals, I’ve been married myself, but it’s a bad thing for a poor devil. Taking a wife is soon done, but the fun of it’s more like an inch than a mile,’ observes Skouratoff, who had just joined in the conversation.

‘Don’t fancy we’re going to amuse ourselves by discussing
you
?’ says the ex-quartermaster in a superior tone. ‘ Kvassoff, I tell you you’re a big idiot! If you fancy the governor can grease the palm of an inspector-general you’ve got things hopelessly muddled. Do you fancy they send a man from Petersburg just to inspect your governor? You’re a precious dolt, my lad, take it from me.’

‘And you fancy because he’s a general he doesn’t take what’s offered?’ someone says in a sceptical tone.

‘I should think he does indeed, and plenty of it whenever he can.’

‘Sure thing; gets bigger, and more, and worse, the higher the rank.’

‘A general
always
has his palm greased,’ says Kvassoff, sententiously.

‘Did
you
ever give one anything, seeing you’re so sure of it?’ asks Baklouchin, suddenly chiming in on a note of contempt. Come, now, did you ever see a general in all your life?’

‘Yes.’

‘Liar!’

‘Liar yourself!’

‘Well, boys, as he
has
seen a general, let him tell us which one. Come, quick about it. I know ’em all, every man jack of ‘em.’

‘ I’ve seen General Zibert,’ says Kvassoff, far from sure of himself.

‘Zibert! There’s no general of that name. That’s the general, perhaps, who watched your back while they gave you the cat. This Zibert was probably a lieutenant-colonel, but you were in such a fright just then, you took him for a general.’

‘No! Just hear me,’ cries Skouratoff, ‘for I’ve got a wife. There really was a general of that name, a German but a Russian subject. He confessed to the bishop every year, all about his peccadilloes with gay women, and drank water like a duck-at least forty glasses of Moskva water one after the other; that was the way he cured himself of some disease. I had it from his valet.’

‘I say! And the carp didn’t swim in his belly?’ this from the convict with the balalaika.

‘Be quiet, you fellows, can’t you-one tries to talk seriously, and there you are beginning your nonsense again. Who’s the inspector that’s coming?’ asked a convict named Martinof who always seemed full of business, an old man who had been in the Hussars.

‘Lying crowd!’ said one of the doubters. ‘Lord knows where they get it all from; it’s all empty talk.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort,’ observes Koulikoff dogmatically. He had remained majestically silent until now. ‘The man who’s coming is big and fat, about fifty years old, with regular features and proud, contemptuous manners on which he prides himself.’

Koulikoff is a Tsigan, a sort of veterinary surgeon; he makes money by treating horses in the town, and sells wine in prison. He is no fool, but has plenty of brain. His memory is well stocked, and he lets his words fall as carefully as if every one of them was worth a rouble.

‘It’s true,’ he went on very calmly; ‘I heard it only last week. He’s a general with bigger epaulettes than most, and he’s going to inspect every prison in Siberia. They grease his palm well, that’s sure enough, but not our governor with eight eyes in his head. The general won’t dare to touch
him;
you see, there are generals and generals, as there are faggots and faggots. That’s how it is, and you may take it from me our governor will remain where he is. As for us, we’re fellows with no tongues, we’ve no right to speak; and as for our officers, they ‘re not going to say a word against him. The inspector will arrive, take a look round, and clear off at once. He’ll say everything’s all right.’

‘Yes, but the governor’s in a fright; he’s been drunk since morning.’