The House of the Dead: or, Prison Life in Siberia

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."