But now Easter came. From the authorities we received one egg and a piece of fancy white bread. Alms from town again poured into the prison. Again the priest visited with the cross, again the authorities visited, again hearty shchi, again drunkenness and loafing—all exactly the same as at Christmas, with the difference that it was now possible to stroll in the prison yard and warm yourself in the sun. It was somehow more bright, more spacious than in winter, but somehow more anguished. The long, endless summer day became somehow especially unbearable during the holidays. Ordinarily the day was shortened by work.
The summer work indeed turned out to be much harder than the winter. The work went mostly into engineering constructions. Prisoners built, dug the earth, laid bricks; others were employed in the metalworking, joinery, and painting sections, repairing government buildings. Still others were sent to make bricks. This last work was considered the hardest of all. The brickyard was two or three miles from the fortress. Every day during the summer, at six o’clock in the morning, a whole party of prisoners, some fifty men, set off to make bricks. Unskilled laborers were chosen for this work, that is, not craftsmen or men versed in any trade. They took bread with them, because the place was far away and it was not worth going home to eat and thus doing an extra six miles, so they ate in the evening on returning to the prison. A task was set for the whole day, and one that would take the prisoner an entire working day to finish. First you had to dig up and transport the clay, bring the water yourself, knead the clay in a pit with your feet, and finally make it into a great many bricks, something like two hundred, if not even two hundred and fifty. I went to the brickyard only twice. People came home in the evening tired, worn out, and reproached the others all summer with the fact that they were doing the hardest work. That, it seems, was their consolation. In spite of which, some even went there with a certain eagerness: first of all, the work was outside town, the place was open, free, on the bank of the Irtysh. In any case, you could look around more cheerfully; here was no hateful prison routine! You could smoke freely and even lie down for half an hour with the greatest pleasure. As for me, I either went to the workshop as before, or to the alabaster, or, finally, was used in the capacity of a brick carrier on a building site. In this last case I once had to carry bricks from the bank of the Irtysh to the building site of a barrack some five hundred feet away, over the fortress rampart, and that work went on for two months in a row. I even liked it, though the rope that the bricks had to be carried with constantly chafed my shoulders. But I liked it that this work was obviously developing my strength. At first I could lug only eight bricks, each brick weighing about twelve pounds. But later I got up to twelve or even fifteen bricks, and that made me very happy. In prison you need as much physical as moral strength to endure all the material inconveniences of that cursed life.
And I wanted to go on living after prison as well …
However, I liked lugging bricks not only because the work strengthened my body, but also because it took place on the bank of the Irtysh. I mention that bank so often because only from there could I see God’s world, the pure, clear distance, the unpopulated, free steppe, which made a strange impression on me by its emptiness. Only on that bank could you turn your back to the fortress and not see it. All our other workplaces were inside the fortress or next to it. From the very first days I conceived a hatred for that fortress and especially for some of its buildings. Our major’s house seemed to me some sort of cursed, repulsive place, and I glanced at it with hatred every time I passed by. On the bank you could forget yourself: you looked at that boundless, empty vastness exactly as an inmate looks out of his prison window at freedom. Everything there was dear and sweet to me: the bright, hot sun in the bottomless blue sky, and the far-off song of a Kirghiz, carried here from the Kirghiz side. You peer into it for a long time and finally make out the poor, sooty yurt of some native; you make out smoke by the yurt, a Kirghiz woman who is bustling about with her two sheep. It is all poor and wild, but free. You make out a bird in the blue, transparent air, and intently follow its flight for a long time: now it skims over the water, now it disappears into the blue, now it reappears as a fleeting dot … Even the poor, stunted flower I found in early spring in a crevice of the stony bank, even that somehow morbidly held my attention. The anguish of that whole first year at hard labor was unbearable, and it made me bitter and irritable. In that first year, because of that anguish, I did not notice many things around me. I closed my eyes and did not want to look. Among my malicious, hateful fellow convicts, I did not notice the good people, capable of thinking and feeling, despite all the revolting crust that covered them outside. Amidst the biting words, I sometimes did not notice a friendly and affectionate word, which was the dearer for being uttered without any purpose, and often straight from a heart that had perhaps suffered and endured more than mine. But why enlarge on that? I was extremely glad if I came back home dead tired: I might fall asleep! Because sleeping was a torment for us in summer, maybe even worse than in winter. True, the evenings were sometimes very nice. The sun, which never left the prison yard all day, would finally go down. Coolness would come, and after it the almost cold (comparatively speaking) steppe night. The prisoners, waiting to be locked in, would wander in groups around the yard. True, the main body of them crowded mostly in the kitchen. There some vital prison question was always raised, there was talk of one thing or another, some rumor was occasionally discussed, most often absurd, but which aroused an extraordinary attention in these people estranged from the world. Once, for instance, news came that our major was to be thrown out. Prisoners are as gullible as children; they themselves know that this news is nonsense, that it has been brought by a well-known babbler and “absurd” man—the prisoner Kvasov, whom they decided long ago not to believe, and whose every other word is a lie—and yet they all seize upon the news, talk it over, amuse themselves, and end by getting angry with themselves, being ashamed of themselves, for having believed Kvasov.
“So who’s going to throw him out?” shouts one. “He’s got a thick neck all right, he’ll deal with it.”
“But there’s got to be superiors above him!” another objects, a hot-tempered fellow and no fool, a man who had seen all the sights, but a debater such as the world has never known.
“A raven won’t peck out a raven’s eye,” a third observes sullenly, as if to himself, a gray-haired man, sitting alone in a corner finishing his shchi.
“As if those superiors are going to come and ask you if they should replace him or not?” a fourth adds indifferently, lightly strumming a balalaika.
“And why not?” the second retorts fiercely. “I mean, if all the poor people ask for it, then we’ve all got to speak up if they start questioning. With us everybody shouts all right, but when it gets down to business, they back out!”
“And what else?” says the balalaika player. “That’s prison for you!”
“And the other day,” the debater goes on, not listening and all afire, “there was flour left over. We scraped it up, the last drops of it, I mean; sent it to be sold. But no, he found out; the foreman denounced us; they took it away; economy, you know. Is that fair or not?”
“Who do you want to complain to?”
“Who to? To the isspector that’s coming.”
“What isspector’s that?”
“It’s true, brothers, an isspector’s coming,” says the sprightly young fellow, a literate man, a former scribe, who has read The Duchess of La Vallière or something of the sort. He is always jovial and amusing, but is respected for having a certain practical knowledge and worldly wear and tear. Paying no attention to the general curiosity aroused by the future inspector, he goes straight to the cooky and asks him for some liver. Our cookies often dealt in things of that sort. For instance, they would buy a big piece of liver on their own money, fry it, and then sell it in small pieces to the prisoners.
“Kopeck, half a kopeck?” asks the cooky.
“Cut me a kopeck’s
worth: let people envy me!” the prisoner answers. “It’s a general, brothers, one of those generals from Petersburg, coming to look over all Siberia. It’s a sure thing. They said so at the commandant’s.”
The news causes an unusual stir. For a quarter of an hour, questions go around: who precisely, which general, of what rank, and is he superior to the local generals? Prisoners are terribly fond of talking about ranks, authorities, who is superior among them, who can make others kowtow to him and who must do the kowtowing, and they even argue and curse and all but get into fights over it. What’s the profit in it? you wonder. But a detailed familiarity with generals and authorities of all sorts was a measure of a man’s knowledge, understanding, and former, pre-prison significance in society. In prison, conversation about the higher authorities is generally considered the most refined and important.
“So it turns out to be true, brothers, that they’re coming to replace the major,” observes Kvasov, a small, red-faced man, hot-tempered and extremely muddle-headed. He had been the first to bring the news about the major.
“He’ll sweeten him up,” the sullen, gray-haired prisoner, who had already dealt with his shchi, objects curtly.
“That he will,” says another. “He’s stashed away plenty of loot for himself! Before us he was a battalion commander. A while ago he wanted to marry the archpriest’s daughter.”
“But he didn’t. They showed him the door, meaning he’s a poor man. What kind of suitor is he? He got up from his chair—and that was it for him! He blew it all at cards during Holy Week. Fedka told us.”
“Yes, he’s a tight-fisted one, yet his money’s all gone.”
“Eh, brother, I was married, too. When a poor man marries, even the nights are too short!” observed Skuratov, turning up at this point in the conversation.
“Oh, yes! You’re just the one we’ve been talking about,” observed the casual former scribe. “And you are a great fool, Kvasov, let me tell you. Do you really think our major could sweeten up a general like him, and that a general like him would come from Petersburg to inspect a major? You’re stupid, lad, that’s what I say.”
“You mean because he’s a general he won’t take?” someone in the crowd remarked skeptically.
“It’s a known thing he won’t, and if he does take, it’ll be fat.”
“Sure it’ll be fat; to go with his rank.”
“Generals always take,” Kvasov observes resolutely.
“So you’ve tried it, have you?” Baklushin, suddenly coming in, says scornfully. “I bet you’ve never even seen a general!”
“I have, too!”
“Liar.”
“Liar yourself.”
“If he’s seen one, boys, let him say now, in front of everybody, which general he knows. Well, speak up, because I know all the generals.”
“I’ve seen General Ziebert,” Kvasov replied somewhat hesitantly.
“Ziebert? There’s no such general. This Zeeber must have looked you in the back when he was maybe still a lieutenant colonel, and you got so scared you imagined he was a general.”
“No, you listen to me,” Skuratov shouts, “because I’m a married man. There actually was such a general in Moscow. Ziebert, of German stock, but a Russian. He went to a Russian priest for confession every year during the Dormition fast,4 and kept drinking water, brothers, just like a duck. Every day he drank forty glasses of Moskva River water. It was a cure for some illness, they said; his vallay told me so himself.”
“He must’ve got a bellyful of carp from all that water,” observes the prisoner with the balalaika.
“Well, enough from you! We’re talking business here, and they … Who’s this isspector, brothers?” a fidgety prisoner, Martynov, an old military man, a former hussar, asks solicitously.
“They’re a bunch of liars!” one of the skeptics observes. “Where do they get it, and where do they put it? And it’s all trash!”
“No, it’s not trash!” Kulikov, who up to now has remained majestically silent, says dogmatically. He is a fellow of around fifty, of extremely handsome looks and with a contemptuously majestic and weighty manner. He is aware of it and is proud of it. He is part Gypsy, a veterinarian, earns money in town by treating horses, and trades in vodka in the prison. He is an intelligent man and has seen a lot. He utters a word like he’s giving you a rouble.
“It’s true, brothers,” he calmly goes on, “I already heard it last week; a general’s coming, a very important one, to inspect the whole of Siberia. He’ll take sweeteners, that’s a known thing, only not from our Eight-eyes: he won’t even dare go near him. There’s generals and generals, brothers. There’s all kinds. Only I’m telling you, in any case our major’ll stay just where he is. That’s for sure. We’ve got no tongues, and the superiors won’t denounce one of their own. The inspector’ll look the prison over, and then just leave, and report that everything’s in good order …”
“So there, brothers, and the major’s turned coward: he’s been drunk since morning.”
“And in the evening a different wagonload drives up. Fedka said so.”
“You can’t wash a black dog white. What, is it the first time he’s drunk?”
“No, what is it then, if the general doesn’t do anything either! No, enough of going along with his foolery!” the agitated prisoners say among themselves.
Word of the inspector immediately spreads through the prison. People wander about the yard and impatiently give each other the news. Others purposely keep silent, preserving their equanimity, and thereby obviously trying to give themselves greater importance. Still others remain indifferent. Prisoners with balalaikas sit themselves on the porches of the barracks. Some go on chattering. Others strike up songs. But generally everyone that evening is in a state of extreme agitation.
After nine o’clock we were all counted, driven into the barracks, and locked up for the night. The nights were short; they woke us up between four and five, and we never fell asleep before eleven. Until then there would always be bustle, talk, and sometimes maidans, as in winter. During the night it was unbearably hot and stuffy. Though a bit of nighttime coolness wafts in through the open sash of the window, the prisoners thrash about on their cots all night as if in delirium. Fleas swarm in myriads. They thrive among us in winter, too, and in quite sufficient numbers, but, starting in spring, they multiply at such a rate that, though I had heard about it before, having had no actual experience of it, I had refused to believe it. And the closer to summer, the more vicious they become. True, you can get used to fleas, as I experienced myself; but all the same it doesn’t come easy. Sometimes they torment you so much that you finally lie there as if in a fever, and you feel yourself that you’re not asleep, but only delirious. Towards morning, when the fleas themselves finally calm down, as if in a swoon, and you really do seem to fall into a sweet sleep in the morning coolness—the pitiless rat-a-tat of the drum suddenly resounds by the prison gate, and reveille begins. Cursing, you listen, wrapping your sheepskin around you, to the loud, distinct sounds, as if counting them, and meanwhile, through sleep, the unbearable thought enters your head that it will be the same tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow, and for several years on end, all the way till freedom. But when will you be free, you think, and where is this freedom? And meanwhile you’ve got to wake up; the everyday walking and jostling begins … People get dressed, hurry to work. True, you can catch another hour of sleep at noon.
It was true what they said about the inspector. The rumors were confirmed more and more each day, and finally everybody knew for certain that an important general was coming from Petersburg to inspect the whole of Siberia, that he had already arrived, that he was already in Tobolsk. Each day new rumors reached the prison. News also came from town: we heard that everybody was frightened, aflutter, wanting to put on a good show. They said the high authorities were preparing receptions, balls, fêtes. Whole groups of prisoners were sent to level the streets in the fortress, raze the bumps, paint the fences a
nd posts, plaster, patch—in short, they wanted to fix up in no time everything that had to be on show. Our men understood very well what it was about and discussed it among themselves ever more heatedly and fervently. Their fantasy reached colossal proportions. They even planned to present a grievance, if the general began asking about their contentment. And meanwhile they argued and quarreled among themselves. The major was nervous. He came to the prison more often, shouted more often, attacked people more often, locked them in the guardhouse more often, and kept a sharper eye on cleanliness and good order. At that time, as if on purpose, a little incident took place in the prison, which, however, did not upset the major in the least, as one might have expected, but, on the contrary, even afforded him pleasure. During a fight, one prisoner stabbed another in the chest with an awl, just near the heart.
The prisoner who committed the crime was named Lomov; the wounded man was known among us as Gavrilka; he was one of the inveterate tramps. I don’t remember if he had any other name; we always called him Gavrilka.
Lomov was a well-to-do peasant from the K—sk district of T—province. The Lomovs lived together as a family: the old father, his three sons, and their uncle Lomov. They were wealthy muzhiks. The talk all over the province was that they had a capital of about three hundred thousand in banknotes. They farmed, dressed hides, traded, but most of all they engaged in usury, the harboring of tramps and stolen goods, and other artful dodges. Half the peasants of the district owed them money and were in bondage to them. They were reputed to be intelligent and cunning muzhiks, but in the end they became self-conceited, especially when a very important person in that area began to stop with them on his travels, made the personal acquaintance of the old man, and came to admire him for his shrewdness and resourcefulness. They suddenly got the notion that there was no more holding them back, and they started taking bigger and bigger risks in various illegal ventures. Everybody murmured against them; everybody wished the earth would swallow them; but they stuck their noses up more and more. Police chiefs and assessors meant nothing to them. Finally they came a cropper and were ruined, though not for anything bad, not for their secret crimes, but on a false accusation. They had a big farmstead, called a zaïmka in Siberia, some seven miles from the village. Once towards autumn they had six Kirghiz workers living there, in bondage to them from long ago. One night all these Kirghiz workers were murdered. An inquiry began. It went on for a long time. In the course of it many other bad things were uncovered. The Lomovs were accused of killing their workers. They told about it themselves, and the whole prison knew it: the suspicion was that they owed these workers too much, and since they were stingy and greedy, despite their great fortune, they murdered the Kirghiz to get out of paying what they owed. During the investigation and trial their entire fortune went up in smoke. The old man died. The children were scattered. One of the sons and his uncle landed in our prison for twelve years. And what then? They were completely innocent of the Kirghiz’s deaths. Later, here in our prison, Gavrilka appeared, a notorious rogue and tramp, a merry and glib fellow, who took this whole affair upon himself. Though I never heard that he had confessed to it, the whole prison was fully convinced that those Kirghiz were his doing. While still a tramp, Gavrilka had had dealings with the Lomovs. He came to the prison on a short sentence as a runaway soldier and tramp. He and three other tramps had murdered the Kirghiz; they had thought to profit greatly by robbing the farmstead.
Notes from a Dead House Page 29