Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (212 page)

‘I say, pal, take and eat!’ said one.

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

‘ Let’s consider ourselves lucky he didn’t have us all soundly thrashed.’

‘ 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, clear off.’

‘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.

After work on the evening of the day the ‘mutiny’ took place, I met Petroff behind the barracks. He was looking for me. As he approached I heard him muttering something which I did not understand; he said no more, but walked by my side in a listless, mechanical fashion.

‘I say, Petroff, your fellows are not annoyed with us, are they?’

‘ Who’s annoyed?’ he asked, as if waking from a dream.

‘The convicts with us-with us noblemen.’

‘Why should they be annoyed?’

‘Well, because we didn’t back them up.’

‘ Oh, why should
you
have kicked up a dust?’ he answered, as if trying to understand my meaning. ‘You have a table to yourselves, you fellows.’

‘Oh, well, there are some of you who are not nobles and who don’t eat the regulation food, and yet they sided with you. We ought to have backed you up. We’re all in prison, and we should all be comrades.’

‘Heavens! You our comrades?’ he asked, with unfeigned astonishment.

I looked at him; it was clear that he had not the least idea of what I meant; I, on the other hand, understood him thoroughly. I now saw quite clearly something of which I had before only a confused idea. What I had previously guessed was now a sad certainty.

I was forced to realize that any sort of true fellowship between the convicts and myself could never be, even if I remained for the rest of my life in the place. I belonged to a kind of ‘special section,’ I was a creature for ever apart. The expression on Petroff’s face when he said, ‘ Are we com-rades, how can that be?’ remains, and will always remain before my eyes. It was a look of such frank, naïve surprise, such ingenuous astonishment, that I could not help asking myself if there was not some lurking irony in the man, a slight shade of sarcasm. Not at all, he was quite sincere. I was not their comrade, and could never be; that was all. Go you to the right, we’ll go to the left! Your business is yours, ours is ours.

After the mutiny I honestly believed they would show us as little mercy as they dared and could, and that our life would become hell. But nothing of the sort happened. We heard not the slightest reproach, there was not the least criticism of what had occurred, it was simply passed over. They went on teasing us as before whenever they had an opportunity, but no more frequently. No one seemed to bear malice against those who stayed in the kitchen and who had not taken part, or against those who had been the first to back down and proclaim that they had no complaint. To my astonishment, it was all forgotten.

CHAPTER VIII

MY COMPANIONS

It will be understood that those to whom I was most drawn, especially in the early days, were men of my own class, that is, men of gentle birth. But of the three Russian ex-nobles in the place, I knew and spoke to only one, Akim Akimitch; the other two were the spy An and the supposed parricide. Even with Akim I never exchanged a word except when I felt at the end of my tether, in moments when my sadness was simply unendurable, and when I really thought I should never again have the chance of getting close to another human being.

In the last chapter I have tried to show that the convicts were of different types, and to classify them accordingly; but when I think of Akim Akimitch I cannot place him satisfactorily. He was
sui generis
in that establishment so far as I was able to observe.

There may have been elsewhere other men like him, to whom it seemed a matter of complete indifference whether they were free or in jail doing hard labour. In our prison Akim was unique by his curious imperturbability of temperament. He had settled down in jail as if he was going to pass his whole life there and didn’t mind it at all. All his belongings-mattress, cushions, utensils-were so arranged as to give the impression that he was living in a furnished house of his own; there was nothing provisional, temporary, transitory, about him, either in speech or behaviour. He had still a good many years of his sentence to run, but I much doubt whether he ever gave a thought to the day when he would be set free. He was entirely reconciled to his condition, not as the result of conscious effort, but simply out of natural submissiveness; as far as his own comfort was concerned, it was all the same to him. He was not at all a bad fellow, and in the early days I found his advice and assistance most useful, though I must confess that his peculiarities sometimes deepened my natural melancholy until it became almost intolerable anguish.

When I became desperate with silence and solitude of soul, I would make conversation with him. I longed to hear and to reply to human speech in any form; and the more filled with gall and hatred of our surroundings that speech had been, the more closely it would have been in sympathy with my wretched mood. But he never said much; he would continue quietly sizing his lanterns, and then begin to tell me some story of how he had taken part in a review of troops in 18-: their divisional commander was So-and-so, the manoeuvring was neatly performed, that there had been a change in the skirmisher’s system of signalling, and so on. It was all told in level imperturbable tones, like water falling drop by drop. He put no life into his descriptions, even when he told me of a sharp skirmish at which he had been present in the Caucasus, after which his sword was decorated with the Ribbon of St Anne. The only difference was that his voice became a little more measured and grave: he lowered his tone when he pronounced the words ‘St Anne,’ as though he were revealing a great secret. Then he remained silent for at least three minutes, looking solemn but not uttering a word.

During the whole of that first year there were moments when I felt only bitter hatred towards Akim Akimitch. I simply cannot say why, but at such times I would despairingly curse the fate which had set his bed next to mine, so close indeed that our heads nearly touched. An hour afterwards I deeply regretted such extravagance. It was, however, only during the first year of my confinement that these violent feelings overpowered me. As time went on, I got used to Akim Akimitch’s singular character, and was ashamed of my former explosions. I do not remember that he and I ever become involved in anything like an open quarrel.

Besides the three Russians of whom I have spoken, there were eight other noblemen in the prison while I was there. Some of them became close friends of mine. Even the best of them, however, were morbid, aloof, and intolerant to the very last degree, and with two of them I was obliged to discontinue all spoken intercourse. There were only three who had any education: B
ski, Mtski, and the old manJ
ski who had formerly been a professor of mathematics, an excellent fellow, but highly eccentric and of very narrow  mental horizon in spite of his learning. Mtski and   Bski were of a very different mould. Mtski and I were on the best of terms from the start. We never disagreed, but although I had the greatest respect for him, I never managed to become sincerely attached to him. He was sour, embittered, mistrustful, and most reserved. That tended to repel me; the man had a closed soul, closed against all the world, and he made one feel it. Indeed, I was so conscious of the fact that I may have judged him unfairly. After all, his character bore the stamp of nobility and strength. His ineradicable scepticism made him very reserved when in company, and he guarded his own droughts with extraordinary skill. Sceptic as he was, there was another and a reverse side to his nature, for in some respects he was a profound and unalterable believer, with unshakable faith and hope. In spite of his tact in dealing with others, he quarrelled openly with B
ski and his friend T
ski.

The first of these, Bski, was a man of poor health, tending to consumption, irascible, and of a weak, nervous disposition; but he was, for all that, a good and generous man. His nervous irritability made him capricious as a child; that kind of temperament was too much for me under those conditions, and I soon began to see as little as possible of Bski, though I never ceased to like him very much.

It was just the other way about with Mtski: with him I was always on easy terms, though I did not care for him at all.

When I began to avoid Bski, I had more or less to break also with Tski, of whom I spoke in the last chapter.

I much regretted that for, though not well educated, he had an excellent heart; a
worthy, and deeply spiritual man. He loved and respected Bski, so much so that he regarded those who broke with his friend as personal enemies. He quarrelled with M
tski on account of B
ski, and it was a long time before the breach was healed. All these people were as ill-humoured as they could be, tetchy and mistrustful, morally and physically hypersensitive. It is not to be wondered at; their situation was trying in the extreme, far more so than ours. They had been exiled and transported for ten or twelve years, and what made their imprisonment yet more difficult to endure was their rooted, ingrained prejudice, especially the unfortunate but insuperable disgust with which they viewed their fellow prisoners. In their eyes the poor fellows were no more than wild beasts, without a single quality that could be recognized as human. Everything in their previous careers and their present circumstances combined to produce this unhappy aversion.

Their life in jail was a perpetual torment. They were kindly and talkative with the Circassians, the Tartars, and Isaiah Fomitch; but for the other prisoners they had nothing but contempt and dislike. The only one for whom they had any respect was the aged Old Believer. Nevertheless, I never heard a single prisoner reproach them with their birth, their religious beliefs, or their convictions, as the Russian peasant so often does to persons of different condition, especially if they happen to be foreigners. The fact is, he cannot take a foreigner seriously: to him the foreigner seems no more than a grotesque figure of fun. The convicts manifested far more respect for the Polish nobles than for us Russians, but I don’t think the Poles cared one way or the other, or took any notice of the fact.

I spoke just now of Tski, and have something more to say of him. When he and B-ski were ordered from their first place of exile to our fortress, he carried his friend nearly the whole way. Bski was frail and in bad health: he became exhausted before they had accomplished half the first stage of the journey. They had first been banished to Ygorsk, where they lived in tolerable comfort and whereconditions were far less severe than with us. But in consequence of a correspondence with some exiles in another town-a quite innocent exchange of letters-it was decided to remove them to our jail, where they would be under more direct Government surveillance. Before their arrival M — tski

had been quite alone, and his sufferings in that first year of his banishment must have been terrible.

Jski was the old man, always deep in prayer, to whom I referred above. Most political prisoners were comparatively young men while Jski was at least fifty years old.

He was a worthy, gentlemanly fellow, if a little eccentric.

T
ski and B
ski detested him and never spoke to him;

they insisted that he was obstinate and troublesome beyond endurance, and I was obliged to admit the truth of their opinion. I believe that in prison-as in every place where men are obliged to live in one another’s company, whether they like it or not-quarrelling and personal hatreds are more common than under normal circumstances. Many causes contributed to those squabbles that were, alas! all too common.

Jski was really disagreeable and narrow-minded; not one of his companions was on good terms with him. He and I never came to open rupture, but we were never really friendly. I fancy that he was a good mathematician. One day he explained to me in his half-Russian, half-Polish jargon an astronomical system of his own invention. I have been told that he had written a work upon the subject, which the learned world had received with derision, and I believe his reason was partially deranged. He used sometimes to spend a whole day on his knees in prayer, which earned the convicts’ respect during the remainder of his imprisonment. He died in my presence after a very painful illness. He had won the esteem of the prisoners from the first moment of his arrival in consequence of an incident between the governor and himself. They had not been shaved once on the road from Ygorsk, and their hair and beards had grown very long by the time they met the governor. That worthy raged like a madman; he was wild with indignation at such a breach of discipline, though it was not their fault.

‘My God! Did you ever see anything like it?’ he roared. ‘They’re vagabonds, brigands!’

Jski knew very little Russian, and thought that he was asking them if they were brigands or vagabonds, so he answered:

‘We are political prisoners, not rogues and vagabonds.’

‘So-o-o! You mean impudence. Clod!’ howled the governor. ‘ To the guard-house with him. A hundred strokes of the rod, this instant, I say!’

They gave the old man his punishment. He lay flat on the ground under the strokes without the slightest resistance, kept his hand between his teeth, and bore it all without a murmur, without moving a muscle. B
ski and T
ski reached the jail while this was in progress. Mski was waiting for them at the principal gate, having heard of their arrival, and threw himself on their necks, although he had never seen them before. Utterly disgusted at the way the governor had received them, they told Mski all about the cruel business that had just occurred. Mski told me later that he was beside himself with rage when he heard it.