That astonished me much, and if I relate certain conversations between the convicts I do so with a purpose. Could I have imagined that people could have insulted one another for pleasure, that they could find enjoyment in it?
We must not forget the gratification of vanity. A dialectician who knows how to insult artistically is respected. A little more, and he would be applauded like an actor.
Already on the previous night I had noticed some glances in my direction, and several convicts had even hung around me as if they had suspected that I had brought money with me. They endeavoured to get into my good graces by teaching me how to carry my irons without inconvenience, and gave me-of course in return for money-a box with a lock, in which to keep the equipment entrusted to me by the authorities, and the few shirts that I had been allowed to bring with me. Yet the very next morning those same prisoners stole my box, and drank the money which they had taken out of it.
One of them afterwards became a great friend of mine, though he robbed me whenever opportunity offered. He was, all the same, vexed at what he had done. He committed these thefts almost unconsciously, as if in the way of a duty. Consequently I bore him no grudge.
These convicts let me know that one could have tea, and that I should do well to get myself a teapot. They found me one, which I hired for a certain time. They also recommended me a cook, who, for thirty kopecks a month, would arrange the dishes I might desire, if it was my intention to buy provisions and take my meals apart. Of course they borrowed money from me. The day of my arrival I was asked for a loan on three separate occasions.
We noblemen who had been degraded and incarcerated here were frowned upon by our fellow prisoners; although we had lost all our rights like the other convicts, we were not regarded as comrades.
In this instinctive repugnance there was an element of reason. To them we were always gentlemen, although they often jeered at our fall.
‘Ah! it’s all over now. Mossieu’s carriage formerly crushed the passersby at Moscow. Now Mossieu picks hemp!’
They knew our sufferings, though we hid them as much as possible. It was principally when we were all working together that we had most to endure, for our strength was not so great as theirs, and we were really not of much assistance to them. Nothing is more difficult than to gain the confidence of the common people, especially such people as these!
There were only a few of us in the whole prison who were of noble birth. First, there were five Poles, of whom I shall later speak in detail. They were detested by the convicts more, perhaps, than the Russian nobles. The Poles-I speak only of the political convicts-always behaved to them with a constrained and offensive politeness, scarcely ever speaking to them, and making no endeavour to conceal the disgust which they experienced in such company. The convicts understood all this, and paid them back in their own coin.
Two years passed before I could gain the goodwill of my companions; but the greater part of them liked me, and declared that I was a good fellow.
There were altogether-counting myself-five Russian nobles in the convict prison. I had heard of one of them even before my arrival as a vile and base creature, horribly corrupt, doing the work of spy and informer. Accordingly, from the very first day I refused to enter into relations with this man. The second was the parricide to whom I have already referred. The third was Akimitch. I have seldom met such an extraordinary man, and I have still a lively recollection of him.
Tall, thin, weak-minded, and terribly ignorant, he was as argumentative and as meticulous as a German. The convicts laughed at him; but they feared him on account of his susceptible, excitable, and quarrelsome disposition. As soon as he arrived he was on a footing of perfect equality with them. He insulted them and beat them. Phenomenally just, it was sufficient for him that there was injustice to interfere in a matter which did not concern him. He was, moreover, extremely simple. When he quarrelled with the convicts he reproached them with being thieves, and exhorted them in all sincerity to steal no more. He had served as a sublieutenant in the Caucasus. I made friends with him the first day, and he related to me his ‘affair.’ He had begun as a cadet in a Line regiment. After waiting some time for his commission as sublieutenant, he at last received it, and was sent into the mountains to command a small fort. Some tributary princeling in the neighbourhood set fire to the fort, and made an unsuccessful attack.
Akimitch was very cunning, and pretended not to know who was the author of the attack, which he attributed to some insurgents wandering about the mountains. A month later, he extended a friendly invitation to the prince to call and see him. The prince, suspecting nothing, arrived on horseback. Akimitch drew up the garrison in fine of battle, and harangued his troops upon the treason and villainy of his visitor. He reproached him with his conduct; proved to him that to set fire to the fort was a shameful crime; explained to him minutely the duties of a tributary prince; and then, by way of peroration to his harangue, had him shot. He at once informed his superior officers of this execution, with all the details necessary. Thereupon Akimitch was brought to trial. He appeared before a court martial, and was condemned to death; but his sentence was commuted, and he was sent to Siberia as a convict of the second class-condemned, that is to say, to twelve years’ hard labour and imprisonment in a fortress. He readily admitted that he had acted illegally, and that the prince ought to have been tried in a civil court and not by a court martial. Nevertheless, he could not understand that his action was a crime.
‘He had burned my fort; what was I to do? Was I to thank him for it?’ he answered to my objections.
Although the convicts laughed at Akimitch, and pretended that he was a little mad, they yet esteemed him by reason of his cleverness and his precision.
He knew all possible trades, and could do whatever you wished. He was cobbler, bootmaker, painter, carver, gilder, and locksmith. He had acquired these talents in prison, for it was sufficient for him to see an object in order to imitate it. He sold in the town, or caused to be sold, baskets, lanterns, and toys. Thanks to his work, he had always some money, which he employed in buying shirts, pillows, and so on. He had himself made a mattress, and as he slept in the same room as myself he was very useful to me at the beginning of my imprisonment.
Before leaving prison to go to work, the convicts were drawn up in two ranks before the orderly-room, surrounded by an escort of soldiers with loaded muskets. An officer of Engineers then arrived with the superintendent of the works and a few soldiers, who watched operations. The superintendent counted the convicts, and sent them in parties to their places of work.
I went with some other prisoners to the engineers’ workshop-a low brick building in the centre of a large courtyard full of materials. There was a forge there, and carpenters’, locksmiths’, and painters’ workshops. Akimitch was assigned to the last. He boiled the oil for the varnish, mixed the colours, and painted tables and other pieces of furniture in imitation walnut.
While I was waiting to have additional irons put on, I communicated to him my first impressions.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘they do not like nobles, above all those who have been condemned for political offences, and they take a pleasure in wounding their feelings. Surely that is understandable? We do not belong to them, wo do not suit them. They have all been serfs or soldiers. Tell me, what sympathy can they have for us? The life here is hard, but it is nothing in comparison with that of the disciplinary companies in Russia. There it is hell, those who have been in them praise our prison: it is as paradise compared with purgatory. Not that the work is harder. It is said that towards the convicts of the first class the authorities, who are not exclusively military as here, act quite differently from what they do towards us. They have their little houses, or so I have been told, for I have not seen for myself. They wear no uniform, nor are their heads shaved, though, in my opinion, uniforms and shaved heads are not bad things. All is neater, and also it is more agreeable to the eye, yet these men do not like it. Oh, what a Babel this place is! Soldiers, Circassians, Old Believers, peasants who have left their wives and families, Jews, gipsies, people come from heaven knows where, and all this variety of men are to live quietly together side by side, eat from the same dish, and sleep on the same planks. Not a moment’s liberty, no enjoyment except in secret; they must hide