IV
First Impressions
The last head count began. After this head count, the barracks were locked, each with its own padlock, and the prisoners remained shut in till daybreak.
The head count was carried out by a sergeant and two soldiers. Sometimes the prisoners were lined up in the yard for it and the guards officer would come. But most often the whole ceremony took place informally in the barracks. So it was this time. The counters frequently made mistakes, counted wrong, left and then came back. At last the poor guards came up with the desired figure and locked the barrack. It held some thirty prisoners packed rather tightly on the bunks. It was too early to sleep. Each of them obviously had to busy himself with something.
Of authorities, only the one invalid I mentioned earlier was left in the barrack. In each barrack there was also a senior prisoner, appointed by the major himself—for good conduct, of course. It very often happened that the senior prisoners in their turn were caught at some serious mischief; then they were whipped, immediately demoted to the juniors, and replaced by others. The senior in our barrack turned out to be Akim Akimych, who, to my surprise, not infrequently shouted at the prisoners. The prisoners usually responded to him with mockery. The invalid was smarter than he and did not interfere in anything, and if he ever did happen to open his mouth, it was more out of propriety, for the sake of a clear conscience. He sat silently on his cot, mending his boot. The prisoners paid almost no attention to him.
On that first day of my prison life I made an observation and later became convinced that it was right. Namely, that all the non-prisoners, whoever they might be, from those directly involved with the prisoners, such as convoy soldiers, guards, down to everyone in general who had anything to do with prison life, had a somehow exaggerated view of the prisoners. As if they were nervously expecting every moment that a prisoner might throw himself at them with a knife. But the most remarkable thing was that the prisoners themselves were aware that they were feared, and it obviously gave them a sort of bravado. Yet for prisoners the best superior is precisely one who is not afraid of them. And in general, despite the bravado, prisoners themselves like it much better when they are trusted. They can even be won over that way. It happened during my term in prison, though extremely rarely, that some one of the superiors would come to the prison without an escort. You should have seen how that struck the prisoners, and struck them in a good sense. Such a fearless visitor always aroused respect for himself, and even if something bad might actually happen, it would not happen in his presence. The fear inspired by prisoners exists wherever there are prisoners, and I really do not know what in fact causes it. There are, of course, some grounds for it, starting from the outward appearance of the prisoner, the acknowledged criminal; besides that, anyone approaching a prison senses that this whole mass of people has been gathered here against their will, and that, whatever the measures taken, a living man cannot be made into a corpse: he will be left with his feelings, with a thirst for revenge and life, with passions and the need to satisfy them. But, despite that, I am firmly convinced that there is still no need to fear prisoners. A man does not so easily and so quickly attack another man with a knife. In short, if the danger is possible, if it does sometimes happen, then, from the rarity of such unfortunate occurrences, one can conclude directly that the risk is negligible. Naturally, I am speaking now only of prisoners who are already sentenced, many of whom are even glad that they have finally made it to prison (a new life is sometimes so good!), and are therefore disposed to live quietly and peacefully; besides, they would not allow the really troublesome among them to show much bravado. Every convict, however bold and impudent he may be, is afraid of everything at hard labor. A prisoner awaiting judgment is another matter. He really is capable of attacking a stranger just like that, for nothing, solely because, for instance, he is going to be punished the next day, and if there is a new trial, the punishment will be postponed. Here there is a reason, a purpose for the attack: it is “to change his lot” at all costs and as soon as possible. I even know a strange psychological case of this sort.
In our prison, in the military category, there was a prisoner, a former soldier, not stripped of his rights, who had been sentenced to two years in prison, a terrible braggart and a remarkable coward. Generally, braggadocio and cowardice are met with extremely rarely in a Russian soldier. Our soldiers always look so busy that, even if they were so inclined, they would have no time for braggadocio. But if he is already a braggart, then he is almost always a do-nothing and a coward. Dutov (the prisoner’s name) finally served his short term and went back to a battalion of the line. But since everyone like him, sent to prison for correction, is definitively spoiled there, it usually happens that, after enjoying their freedom for no more than two or three weeks, they are taken to court again and turn up back in prison, only not for two or three years now, but in the “perpetual” category, for fifteen or twenty years. And so it happened. Some three weeks after leaving prison, Dutov committed a burglary; on top of that, he was rude and rowdy. He was tried and sentenced to severe punishment. Terrified in the extreme, to the utmost, by the forthcoming punishment, pitiful coward that he was, on the eve of the day he was to run the gauntlet, he attacked a guards officer with a knife as he came into the prisoners’ cell. Naturally, he knew very well that by such an act he would greatly increase his sentence and his term at hard labor. But he was precisely counting on putting off the terrible moment of punishment for at least a few days, a few hours! He was such a coward that, in attacking the officer with a knife, he did not even wound him, but did it all for the sake of form, only so that there would be a new crime, for which he would again stand trial.
The time before punishment is, of course, terrible for the sentenced man, and over several years I got to see a good number of them on the eve of their fatal day. I usually met with sentenced prisoners in the hospital, in the prisoners’ ward, where they would be lying sick, as happened quite often. It is known to all prisoners all over Russia that the people who sympathize most with them are doctors. They never make any distinction between prisoners, as almost everyone on the outside involuntarily does, except perhaps for simple folk, who never reproach a prisoner for his crime, however terrible it was, and forgive him everything on account of the punishment he endures and in general for his misfortune. Not for nothing do folk all over Russia call crime misfortune and criminals unfortunates. That is a profoundly significant definition. It is all the more important for being made unconsciously, instinctively. As for doctors—they are a veritable refuge for prisoners in many cases, especially for those under sentence, who are kept in worse conditions than the ordinary convicts … And so the sentenced man, having calculated the probable time until his terrible day, often gets to the hospital, wishing to put the difficult moment off a while longer. When he is discharged, knowing that tomorrow is almost certainly the fatal day, he is almost always in great agitation. Some try to conceal their feelings out of vanity, but their awkward, affected bravado does not deceive their comrades. They all understand what it is about and say nothing out of human sympathy. I knew a prisoner, a young man, a murderer, a former soldier, who was sentenced to the maximum number of rods. He was so frightened that on the eve of the punishment he decided to drink a jug of vodka infused with snuff. Incidentally, vodka always turns up for a condemned prisoner before his punishment. It is smuggled in long before the appointed day, is obtained for big money, and the condemned man would sooner go six months without necessities so as to save up the sum needed for a half pint of vodka to be drunk fifteen minutes before the punishment. There is a general conviction among prisoners that a drunk man does not feel the rods or lashes as badly. But I am digressing from my story. The poor fellow, having drunk his jug of vodka, in fact became sick at once; he began to vomit blood and was taken to the hospital nearly unconscious. This vomiting so damaged his lungs that after a few days he showed symptoms of real consumption, from which he died six months later. T
he doctors who treated him for consumption had no idea what had caused it.
But, since I am telling about the faintheartedness frequently met with in prisoners awaiting punishment, I must add that, on the contrary, some of them astonish the observer by their extraordinary fearlessness. I recall several examples of courage that reached the point of a sort of insensibility, and these examples were not that rare. I particularly recall my encounter with one frightful criminal. One summer day rumor spread through the prisoners’ wards that in the evening the famous brigand Orlov, a runaway soldier, was to be punished, and after the punishment he would be brought to the ward. Waiting for Orlov, the sick prisoners affirmed that he was to be cruelly punished. They were all in some agitation, and, I confess, I also awaited the famous brigand’s appearance with great curiosity. I had long been hearing wonders about him. He was an evildoer such as few are, who put his knife cold-bloodedly into old people and children—a man with a formidable strength of will and a proud consciousness of his strength. He pleaded guilty to many murders and was sentenced to run the gauntlet. It was already evening when he was brought. The ward was dark, and candles had been lit. Orlov was nearly unconscious, terribly pale, with thick, disheveled, pitch-black hair. His back was swollen and of a bloody blue color. The prisoners tended to him all night, changed the water for him, turned him from side to side, gave him medicine, as if they were caring for some near and dear one, or some benefactor. The very next day he came fully to his senses and paced up and down the ward a couple of times! That amazed me: he had been so weak and exhausted when he arrived in the hospital. He had made it at one go through half the total number of rods he was sentenced to. The doctor had stopped the punishment only when he saw that to continue it threatened the inevitable death of the criminal. Besides, Orlov was a small man and of weak constitution, and what’s more he had been worn out by being kept on trial for a long time. Anyone who has ever happened to meet with prisoners on trial will probably long remember their worn-out, gaunt, and pale faces, their inflamed eyes. Despite that, Orlov was quickly recovering. Obviously, his spirit, his inner energy, was a great help to nature. In fact, this was not at all an ordinary man. I became more closely acquainted with him out of curiosity and studied him for a whole week. I can say positively that I have never in my life met a man of stronger, more iron character than he. Once, in Tobolsk, I saw a celebrity of this kind, the former chief of a band of brigands. He was a wild beast in the fullest sense, and standing next to him and not yet knowing his name, you sensed instinctively that you had a frightful creature beside you. But for me the horrible thing in him was his spiritual torpor. The flesh had won out over all his inner qualities so much that from the first glance you could see by his face that the only thing left in him was one savage craving for physical gratification, sensuality, fleshly indulgence. I am sure that Korenev—the name of this brigand—would even have lost heart and trembled with fear in the face of punishment, though he was capable of killing without even batting an eye. Orlov was the complete opposite of him. This was manifestly a total victory over the flesh. You could see that the man had limitless control of himself, despised all tortures and punishments, and had no fear of anything in the world. You saw in him only an infinite energy, a thirst for activity, a thirst for revenge, a thirst for attaining a set goal. Among other things, I was struck by his strange haughtiness. He looked upon everything from some incredible height, though without any effort to stand on stilts, but just so, somehow naturally. I think there was no being in the world who could have had an effect on him by authority alone. He looked at everything with a sort of unexpected calm, as if there was nothing in the world that could surprise him. And though he fully realized that the other prisoners looked at him with respect, he did not pose before them in the least. Yet vanity and arrogance are characteristic of almost all prisoners without exception. He was not at all stupid and was somehow strangely frank, though by no means a babbler. To my questions he replied directly that he was waiting to recover, the sooner to get through the rest of the punishment, and that he had been afraid at first, before the punishment, that he would not survive it. “But now,” he added, winking at me, “the matter’s settled. I’ll get through the rest of the strokes and set off at once with a party to Nerchinsk, but I’ll escape on the way. Escape for sure! If only my back heals quickly!” And all those five days he waited greedily until he could ask to be discharged. During the wait, he was sometimes full of laughter and merriment. I tried to talk with him about his adventures. He frowned a little at these questions, but always answered frankly. When he realized that I was getting at his conscience and probing for some repentance in him, he looked at me with such contempt and haughtiness, as if I had suddenly turned in his eyes into a silly little boy, with whom it was impossible to reason as with a grown-up. Something like pity for me even showed in his face. A moment later he burst into the most simple-hearted laughter at me, without any irony, and I’m sure, when he was left alone and recalled my words, he laughed maybe several more times. He was finally discharged with his back not quite healed; I, too, was discharged just then, and we happened to return from the hospital together: I to the prison, he to the guardhouse next to our prison, where he had been kept before. Saying good-bye, he shook my hand, and this was a sign of great trust on his part. I think he did it because he was very pleased with himself and the present moment. At bottom he could only have despised me and certainly must have looked at me as at a submissive creature, weak, pathetic, and beneath him in all respects. The next day he was led out to his second punishment …
Once our barrack was locked, it suddenly acquired a special look—the look of a real dwelling, a domestic hearth. Only now could I see the prisoners, my comrades, as if quite at home. During the day, the sergeants, the guards, and the authorities in general could turn up in the prison at any moment, and therefore the inhabitants of the prison all behaved somehow differently, as if not quite at ease, as if expecting something every moment, in some sort of apprehension. But as soon as the barrack was locked, they all settled down calmly at once, each in his own place, and nearly everyone took up some handiwork. The barrack was suddenly lit up. Each man had his own candle and candlestick, most often a wooden one. Some began to stitch boots, some to sew clothes. The mephitic atmosphere of the barrack became worse by the hour. A bunch of revelers squatted in a corner over cards on a spread rug. In almost every barrack there was such a prisoner, who kept a flimsy three-foot rug, a candle, and an incredibly dirty, greasy pack of cards. All this together was known as a maidan.1 The keeper was paid by the gamblers, some fifteen kopecks a night; that was his cut of the deal. The card players usually played blackjack, draw poker, and so on. They were all games of chance. Each player spilled a pile of copper money in front of him—all he had in his pocket—and got up only when he was cleaned out or had beaten his comrades. The game ended late at night, or sometimes went on till daybreak, till the moment when the barrack was unlocked. In our room, as in all the other barracks of the prison, there were always destitute men, baygushi, who had gambled or drunk away everything, or who were simply destitute by nature. I say “by nature,” and I put special emphasis on the expression. Indeed, among our people everywhere, in whatever surroundings, in whatever conditions, there are and always will be certain strange persons, placid and often not at all lazy, who are destined by fate to remain eternally destitute. They are always solitary, they are always slovenly, they always look somehow downtrodden and depressed by something, and they are eternally ordered about by somebody, run somebody’s errands, usually a carouser or a man suddenly become rich and eminent. Any undertaking, any initiative is a grief and a burden for them. It seems they were born on the condition that they never begin anything themselves and only serve others, that they not live by their own will, that they dance to another’s tune; their purpose is only to do for others. To crown it all, no circumstances, no upheavals can make them rich. They are always destitute. I have noticed that such persons exist
not only among simple people, but in all companies, estates, parties, journals, and associations. So it was in every barrack, in every prison, and as soon as a maidan was set up, one of them immediately appeared with his services. In general, no maidan could do without a servant. He was usually hired by all the players together, at five silver kopecks for the whole night, and his main duty was to stand watch all night. Most of the time he froze for six or seven hours in the dark, in the entryway, at thirty degrees below zero, listening to every tap, every clank, every footstep outside. The major or the guards sometimes appeared in the prison quite late at night, came in quietly, and caught the gamblers, and the workers, and the extra candles, which could be seen from outside. In any case, when the lock suddenly began to rattle on the door to the yard, it was already too late to hide, put out the candles, and lie down on a bunk. But since the servant on watch caught it badly afterwards from the maidan, the cases of such mishaps were extremely rare. Five kopecks was, of course, absurdly insignificant pay, even for prison; but I was always struck, in this and all other cases, by the severity and mercilessness of the prison employers: “You took the money, so do the job!” This was an argument that brooked no objections. For the kopecks paid, the employer took all he could take, took, if possible, even something extra, and still considered that he had done the hired man a favor. A carouser, drinking, throwing money around right and left without counting, unfailingly cheated his servant, and that I noticed in more than one prison, in more than one maidan.
Notes from a Dead House Page 8