Notes from a Dead House

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

  On the eve of Saturday, each Friday evening, men came to our barrack from the other barracks on purpose to see Isai Fomich celebrate his Sabbath. Isai Fomich was so innocently boastful and vain that this general curiosity also gave him pleasure. With pedantic and affected pomposity he covered his tiny little table in the corner, opened the book, lit two candles, and, muttering some mysterious words, began to array himself in his vestment (“veshtment,” as he pronounced it). It was a multicolored woolen shawl, which he kept carefully in his chest. He tied bands on both arms and attached a little wooden box to his head with a strap, right on his forehead, so that it looked as if Isai Fomich’s forehead had sprouted a ridiculous horn. Then the prayer began. He read it in singsong, cried out, spluttered, swung around, made wild and ridiculous gestures. Of course, all this was prescribed by the rites of prayer, and there was nothing ridiculous or strange in it, but the ridiculous thing was that Isai Fomich seemed purposely to display and flaunt his rites before us. He would suddenly cover his head with his hands and start reading in sobs. His sobbing increases and, exhausted and all but wailing, he lowers his head crowned with the ark onto the book; but suddenly, amidst the most violent sobbing, he begins to laugh and to chant in singsong, in a voice somehow tenderly solemn, somehow weak from overflowing happiness. “See how worked up he is!” the prisoners would say. I once asked Isai Fomich what was the meaning of this sobbing and then suddenly this solemn transition to happiness and bliss. Isai Fomich was awfully fond of these questions of mine. He immediately explained to me that the weeping and sobbing meant thinking about the loss of Jerusalem, and that the law prescribed that one weep and beat one’s breast as hard as possible at the thought of it. But at the moment of the bitterest weeping, he, Isai Fomich, must suddenly, as if inadvertently, recall (this suddenly is also prescribed by the law) that there exists a prophecy about the return of the Jews to Jerusalem. Here he must immediately burst into joy, singing, laughter, and start saying his prayers so that his voice expresses the greatest possible happiness, and his face the greatest possible solemnity and nobility. This sudden change, and the obligatory character of it, Isai Fomich liked very much: he saw it as an especially clever trick, and he told me about this intricate rule of the law with a boastful air. Once, in the very heat of his prayer, the major came into the room, accompanied by the guards officer and some convoy soldiers. All the prisoners stood to attention by their bunks; only Isai Fomich began to shout and grimace still more. He knew that prayer was permitted, that it could not be interrupted, and that he was of course not risking anything by shouting in the major’s presence. But he found it extremely pleasing to strike a pose before the major and show off before us. The major came and stood one step behind him: Isai Fomich turned his back to his little table and, waving his arms, started reciting his solemn prophecy in singsong right into the major’s face. Since it was prescribed for him that at that moment his face should express exceedingly much happiness and nobility, he immediately did so, squinting his eyes somehow peculiarly, laughing, and nodding his head at the major. The major was surprised; but he finally snorted with laughter, called him a fool right to his face, and left, while Isai Fomich intensified his shouting still more. An hour later, when he was having supper, I asked him: “And what if the major, stupid as he is, had gotten angry with you?”

  “What major?”

  “What do you mean, what major? Didn’t you see him?”

  “No.”

  “Why, he was standing two feet away, right in front of your face.”

  But Isai Fomich began to assure me in the most serious way that he had decidedly not seen any major, and that while saying these prayers he falls into some sort of ecstasy, so that he no longer sees or hears anything that happens around him.

  I can see Isai Fomich as if it were now, when he loiters idly around the whole prison, trying as hard as he can to do nothing, as the Law prescribes for Saturday. What impossible stories he told me each time he came back from his prayerhouse; what outlandish news and rumors from Petersburg he brought me, assuring me that he had gotten it from his Jews, and they had gotten them at first hand.

  But I’m talking too much about Isai Fomich.

  There were only two public bathhouses in the whole town. The first, kept by a Jew, had separate rooms, at fifty kopecks per room, intended for high-flown people. The other was primarily for simple folk, decrepit, dirty, small, and it was to this bathhouse that our prison was taken. It was cold and sunny; the prisoners were glad to leave the fortress and have a look at the town. There was ceaseless joking and laughter on the way. An entire platoon of soldiers accompanied us with loaded rifles, to the wonder of the whole town. In the bathhouse we were at once divided into two shifts: the second waited in the cold vestibule while the first was washing, which was necessary because the bathhouse was small. But, despite that, the bathhouse was so small that it was hard to imagine how even half of us could fit into it. Petrov never left my side; even without my asking, he hastened to help me and even offered to wash me. Along with Petrov, Baklushin also volunteered to serve me; he was that prisoner from the special section who was nicknamed “the pioneer” and whom I have already mentioned as the merriest and nicest of the prisoners, which in fact he was. He and I were already slightly acquainted. Petrov even helped me to undress, because, being unaccustomed, it took me a long time, and the vestibule was almost as cold as outside. Incidentally, it is very difficult for a prisoner to undress, if he has not yet fully learned how. First, he has to learn how to quickly unlace his under-fetters. These under-fetters are made of leather, about seven inches long, and are worn over the drawers, just under the iron ring around the leg. A pair of under-fetters costs no less than sixty silver kopecks, and yet every prisoner acquires them at his own expense, because it is impossible to walk without them. The ring of the fetters does not fit tightly around the leg; you can put your finger between ring and leg; as a result the ring hits against the leg, chafes it, and without under-fetters a prisoner will manage to rub himself raw in a single day. But removing the under-fetters is not so difficult. More difficult is learning how to skillfully remove your drawers from under the fetters. That’s a real trick. Having pulled your drawers down, say, on your left leg, you first have to pass them between your leg and the iron ring; then, once your leg is free, the drawers have to be pulled back through the same ring; then everything that has been taken off the left leg has to be pulled through the ring on the right leg; and after that everything that has been pulled through the ring has to be pulled back up again. It’s the same story with putting on fresh drawers. For a novice it’s even hard to figure out how to do it. The first one to teach us all that was the prisoner Korenev, in Tobolsk, the former robber chief who had spent five years on a chain. But prisoners get used to it and manage without the slightest difficulty. I gave Petrov several kopecks to provide soap and some bast; true, each prisoner was also issued prison soap, as big as a two-kopeck piece and as thick as a slice of cheese served as an evening snack among people of the “middling sort.” Soap was sold right there in the vestibule, along with spiced tea, kalachi, and hot water. By arrangement with the bathhouse owner, each prisoner was allotted only one basin of hot water; for half a kopeck whoever wanted to wash himself cleaner could get another basin, which would be passed inside from the vestibule through a special window. Having undressed me, Petrov even led me under the arm, noticing that I had great difficulty walking in fetters. “Pull them up on your calves,” he kept saying, supporting me like an attendant, “and be careful, there’s a step here.” I was even somewhat ashamed; I wanted to assure Petrov that I could walk by myself, but he would not have believed me. He treated me decidedly like a child, immature and clumsy, whom everyone was obliged to help. Petrov was by no means a servant; he was anything but a servant; if I had offended him, he would have known how to deal with me. I never promised him money for his services, and he did not ask for any. What induced him to tend to me like that?

  When we opene
d the door to the bathhouse itself, I thought we were entering hell. Imagine a room some twelve paces long and the same in width, in which maybe up to a hundred men are packed at once, and certainly at least eighty, because the prisoners were divided into just two shifts, and in all about two hundred of us had come to the bathhouse. Steam clouding your eyes, soot, filth, such crowdedness that there was nowhere to set your foot down. I was frightened and wanted to turn back, but Petrov immediately reassured me. Somehow, with the greatest difficulty, we forced our way to the benches over the heads of people sitting on the floor, asking them to bend down so that we could pass. But all the places on the benches were taken. Petrov announced to me that we had to buy places and at once entered into negotiations with a prisoner who had a place by a window. The man gave up his place to me for a kopeck, immediately took the money from Petrov, who had had the foresight to bring it with him to the bathhouse clenched in his fist, and darted at once under the bench right under my place, where it was dark, dirty, and there was a layer of sticky slime almost half a finger thick. But the places under the benches were all taken, too; people were also creeping around there. On the whole floor there was no space bigger than the palm of your hand not occupied by prisoners sitting hunched up and splashing themselves from their basins. Others stood between them and, holding their basins, washed themselves standing up; the dirty water poured straight onto the shaven heads of those sitting under them. On the top shelf and all the steps leading to it, men sat, cramped and hunched up, washing themselves. But little washing went on. Simple folk don’t wash much with soap and hot water; they steam themselves terribly and then douse themselves with cold water—that’s their bath. Some fifty birch besoms rose and fell together; they all whipped themselves to the point of intoxication. More steam was added every moment. This was no longer heat; it was the fiery furnace. All was a bawling and roaring to the noise of a hundred fetters dragging on the floor … Some, wishing to pass by, got entangled in the chains of others and themselves struck against the heads of those sitting below them, falling, cursing, bringing the struck ones down with them. Filthy water came pouring from all sides. Everybody was in some sort of excited, intoxicated state of mind; shrieks and shouts rang out. At the window to the vestibule, where water was dispensed, there was cursing, jostling, a real scramble. The hot water spilled on the heads of those sitting on the floor before it reached its destination. Now and then the mustached face of a soldier, gun in hand, peeked in the window or the slightly opened door to see if there was any disorder. The shaven heads and steamed red bodies of the prisoners looked uglier than ever. Old scars from whipping or flogging usually stand out more vividly on a steamed back, so that now all those backs seemed newly covered with wounds. Frightful scars! I got chills looking at them. They pour on more—and steam veils the whole room in thick, hot clouds; it’s all roaring, shouting. Through the clouds of steam flash beaten backs, shaven heads, doubled-up arms and legs; and to crown it all, Isai Fomich roars full-throatedly on the highest shelf. He steams himself into oblivion, but it seems no heat can satisfy him; for a kopeck he hires a man to birch him, but the man finally can’t stand it, abandons the besom, and runs to douse himself with cold water. Isai Fomich does not give up and hires a second man, a third: he’s resolved to overlook the cost on such an occasion and goes through five replacements. “There’s a healthy steaming! Bravo, Isai Fomich!” the prisoners shout to him from below. Isai Fomich himself feels that at that moment he is higher than them all and has outdone them all; he is triumphant and in a shrill, crazed voice screams out his aria: “La-la-la-la-la,” which drowns all other voices. It occurred to me that if we should all wind up in the fiery furnace together, it would very much resemble this place. I could not help conveying this conjecture to Petrov; he only looked around and said nothing.

  I wanted to buy him a place next to me, but he sat down at my feet and declared that he was very comfortable. Meanwhile Baklushin kept buying water for us and bringing it as needed. Petrov said he would wash me from head to foot, so that “you’ll be all nice and clean,” and urgently invited me to steam myself. I did not risk that. Petrov soaped me up all over. “And now I’ll wash your little feet,” he added in conclusion. I was about to say that I could wash them myself, but did not contradict him and surrendered myself completely to his will. The diminutive “little feet” had absolutely no servile tone to it; Petrov simply could not call my feet “feet,” probably because other, real people had feet, while mine were still only little feet.

  Having washed me, he conveyed me to the vestibule with the same ceremony, that is, supporting me and cautioning me at every step as if I were made of porcelain, helped me into my drawers, and, when he was completely done with me, rushed back to steam himself.

  When we came home, I offered him a glass of tea. He did not refuse the tea, drank it, and thanked me. It occurred to me to loosen my purse strings and treat him to a dram of vodka. Vodka was found in our barrack. Petrov was highly delighted, drank it, grunted, and, observing that I had revived him completely, hurried off to the kitchen, as if there were something there that could not possibly be decided without him. Instead of him another interlocutor arrived, Baklushin (the pioneer), whom I had also invited for tea while we were still in the bathhouse.

  I don’t know of a character sweeter than Baklushin’s. True, he gave no quarter to others, even quarreled often, did not like anyone to interfere in his affairs—in short, he could stand up for himself. But he never quarreled for long, and everybody in the prison seemed to like him. Wherever he went, he was greeted with pleasure. He was known even in town as the most amusing man in the world and one who never lost his joviality. He was a tall fellow, around thirty, with a dashing and simple-hearted face, quite handsome, and with a wart. He sometimes distorted that face of his so killingly, impersonating somebody or other, that the people around him could not help laughing. He was one of the jokers himself; but he gave no leeway to our scornful haters of laughter, and therefore nobody denounced him for being an “empty and useless” man. He was full of fire and life. He got acquainted with me during the very first days and announced to me that he had been a cantonist, had then served in the pioneers, and had even been noticed and liked by some highly placed persons, of which, for old times’ sake, he was very proud. He immediately started questioning me about Petersburg. He even read books. Having come to me for tea, he first of all made the whole barrack laugh, telling how Lieutenant Sh. had given our major a dressing down that morning, and, sitting beside me, he announced to me with a pleased look that it seemed the theater was going to take place. They were planning to have theater in the prison during the holidays. Actors had turned up; scenery was being prepared little by little. Some townspeople promised to give their clothes for the actors’ roles, even the female ones; there was even hope of obtaining, by means of an orderly, an officer’s uniform with epaulettes. If only the major doesn’t decide to forbid it like last year. Last year at Christmas the major had been in a bad mood: he had lost at cards somewhere, and there had been some mischief in the prison, so he had forbidden it out of spite, but now maybe he won’t want to hinder things. In short, Baklushin was excited. It was clear that he was one of the chief initiators of the theater, and I promised myself then and there that I would go to the performance without fail. Baklushin’s simple-hearted joy over the success of the theater delighted me. One thing led to another, and we got to talking. Among other things, he told me that he had not served in Petersburg all the time; that he had done something wrong and had been sent, albeit as a sergeant, to a garrison battalion in R.2

  “It’s from there that I was sent here,” said Baklushin.

  “What for?” I asked him.

  “What for? What do you think it was for, Alexander Petrovich? For falling in love!”

  “Well, you don’t get sent here for that,” I objected, laughing.

  “True,” Baklushin added, “true, along with that I also turned my pistol on a German there. But, judge
for yourself, is it worth exiling a man over a German?”

  “How was it, though? Tell me, I’m curious.”

  “A very funny story, Alexander Petrovich.”

  “So much the better. Go on, tell me.”

  “Shall I? Well, listen, then …”

  What I heard was not really funny, but rather the very strange story of a murder …

  “It was like this,” Baklushin began. “So they sent me to R. I see it’s a nice, big town, only there are lots of Germans. Well, naturally, I’m still a young man, in good standing with the superiors, I go around with my hat cocked—passing the time, you know. Winking at the German girls. And I liked one of the German girls there. Luisa. They were laundresses, of rich people’s linen, she and her aunt. The aunt was old, all puffed up with herself, and they lived well. At first I kept strolling past their windows, but then we became real friends. Luisa spoke Russian well, only she swallowed her rs a little—such a sweetheart, I’d never met anyone like her. At first I tried a little of this and that, but she says to me: ‘No, that you can’t do, Sasha, because I want to preserve all my innocence so as to make you a worthy wife,’ and she was just sweet with me—such a ringing laugh she had … and such a clean little thing, I’d never seen anyone like that except for her. It was she who lured me into marriage. Well, how could I not marry, just think! So I was getting ready to go to the lieutenant colonel with my request … Suddenly I look—Luisa didn’t come to meet me once, didn’t come a second time, didn’t show up a third time … I sent her a letter: no answer. What’s this, I think? I mean, if she’d wanted to deceive me, she’d have managed it, she’d have answered the letter and come to see me. But she didn’t even know how to lie; she just broke it off. It’s the aunt, I thought. I didn’t dare go to the aunt; she knew about us, but we pretended—I mean, we trod softly. I went around like in a daze, wrote her a final letter and said, ‘If you don’t come, I’ll go to your aunt myself.’ She got frightened and came. She cries; she says a certain German, Schultz, a distant relation, a watchmaker, rich and already elderly, has expressed a wish to marry her—‘in order to make me happy, he says, and not to be left without a wife in his old age; and he says he loves me and has long been meaning to do it, but said nothing and kept preparing himself. So, Sasha,’ she says, ‘he’s rich, and for me that’s happiness; can you want to deprive me of my happiness?’ I look: she’s crying, she embraces me … Eh, I think, she’s talking reason! What’s the use of marrying a soldier, even if he’s a sergeant? ‘Well, good-bye, Luisa,’ I say. ‘God be with you. I mustn’t deprive you of your happiness. And, what, is he handsome?’ ‘No,’ she says, ‘he’s old, he’s got a long nose …’ She even laughed herself. I left her there. So, I think, it’s not fated to be! The next morning I went to his shop—she had told me the address. I look through the window: a German’s sitting there making watches, about forty-five, hook-nosed, bug-eyed, in a tailcoat and with a standing collar, a real high one, so pompous. I just spat; wanted to smash his window on the spot … but no, I think, don’t lay a finger on him, what’s lost is lost! I went to the barracks in the evening, lay on my cot, and—would you believe it, Alexander Petrovich?—burst out crying …