Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (186 page)

The day was warm and foggy, the snow was on the point of melting. Our group walked towards the bank behind the fortress, our chains rattling beneath our garments; the sound was clear and ringing. Two or three convicts went to collect tools from the depot.

I walked ahead with the others, rather excited, for I was anxious to discover in what this field labour consisted, to what sort of work I was condemned, and how I should do it for the first time in my life.

I remember the smallest particulars. As we walked along we met a townsman with a long beard, who stopped and slipped his hand into his pocket. One man fell out, took off his cap and received alms-to the extent of five kopecks- then hurried back. The townsman made the sign of the cross and went his way. Those five kopecks were spent the same morning in buying scones of white bread which were shared equally amongst us. Some of my squad were gloomy and taciturn, others indifferent and indolent. There were some who kept up a perpetual chatter One of them was extremely gay, heaven knows why; he sang and danced as we went along, shaking and ringing his chains at every step. He was a huge fat man, the same who, on the day of my arrival at washing time, had quarrelled with one of his companions about the water, and had ventured to compare him to some sort of bird. His name was Scuratoff. He finished by shouting out a lively song of which I remember the burden:

‘They married me without my consent, When I was at the mill.’

Nothing was wanting but a balalaika.

His extraordinary good humour was justly reproved by several of the prisoners, who took offence at it.

‘ Listen to his row,’ said one of the convicts, ‘ why can’t he shut up?’

‘ The wolf has but one song, and this Tuliak is stealing it from him,’ said another whose accent proclaimed him a Little Russian.

‘Of course I’m from Tula,’ replied Scuratoff; ‘but we don’t stuff ourselves to bursting as you do in Pultava.’

‘Liar! What did you eat yourself? Bark shoes and cabbage soup?’

‘You talk as if the devil fed you on sweet almonds,’ broke in a third.

‘I admit, my friend, that I’m softly nurtured,’ said Scura-toff with a gentle sigh, as though he were really reproaching himself for his softness. ‘I was lapped in luxury from earliest childhood, fed on plums and dainty cakes. My brothers even now have a large business at Moscow: they’re wholesale dealers in the wind that blows-immensely rich men, as you may imagine.’

‘And what did you sell?’

‘I was very successful, and when I received my first two hundred’

‘Roubles? Impossible!’ interrupted one of the prisoners, struck with amazement at hearing of so large a sum.

‘No, my good fellow, not two hundred roubles, two hundred strokes. Luka! I say Luka!’

‘ Some have the right to call me Luka, but to you I’m Luka Kouzmitch,’ retorted a small, feeble convict with a pointed nose.

‘The devil take you, you’re really not worth speaking to; yet I wanted to be civil to you. But to continue my story. This is how it happened that I left Moscow. I received my last fifteen strokes and was then sent off, and was at’

‘But what were you sent for?’ asked another convict who had been listening attentively.

‘Don’t ask stupid questions. I was explaining to you how it was I did not make my fortune at Moscow; and yet you can’t imagine how anxious I was to be rich.’

Several prisoners began to laugh. Scuratoff was one of those lively persons, full of animal spirits, who take a pleasure in amusing their graver companions, and who, as a matter of course, received no reward except insults. He belonged to a type of men of whose characteristics I shall, perhaps, have occasion to say more.

‘And what a fellow he is now!’ observed Luka Kouzmitch. ‘His clothes alone must be worth a hundred roubles.’

Scuratoff had the oldest and greasiest sheepskin imaginable. It was patched in many different places with pieces that scarcely hung together. He looked at Luka attentively from head to foot.

‘It’s my head, friend,’ he said, ‘my head that’s worth the money. When I said good-bye to Moscow I felt that at any rate my head was going to make the journey on my shoulders. Farewell, Moscow, I shall never forget your free air, nor the tremendous flogging I got. As for my sheepskin, you’re not! obliged to look at it.’

‘ Perhaps you ‘d like me to look at your head?’

‘If it was really his own natural property, but it was given him in charity,’ cried Luka Kouzmitch. ‘It was a gift made; to him at Tumen when the convoy was passing through the town.’

‘Scuratoff, had you a workshop?’

‘Workshop! He was only a cobbler,’ said one of the convicts.

‘It’s true,’ said Scuratoff, without noticing the caustic tone of the speaker. ‘ I tried to mend boots, but never got beyond a single pair.’

‘And were you paid for them?’

‘Well, I found a fellow who certainly neither feared God nor honoured either his father or his mother, and as a punishment Providence made him buy the work of my hands.’

The group round Scuratoff burst out laughing.

‘I also worked once at the prison,’ continued Scuratoff, with imperturbable coolness. ‘I mended boots for Stepan Fedoritch, the lieutenant.’

‘And was he satisfied?’

‘No, my dear fellows, indeed he wasn’t; he blackguarded me enough to last me for the rest of my life. He kicked my backside, too. What a rage he was in! Ah! my life’s been a failure. I see no fun whatever in prison.’ He began to sing again.

‘Akolina’s husband is in the courtyard. There he waits.’

Again he sang, and again he danced and leaped.

‘Most unbecoming!’ murmured the Little Russian, who was walking by my side.

‘Frivolous man!’ said another in a serious, decided tone.

I could not make out why they insulted Scuratoff, nor why they despised those convicts who were light-hearted, as they seemed to do. I attributed the anger of the Little Russian and the others to a feeling of personal hostility, but in this I was wrong. They were vexed that Scuratoff had not that puffed-up air of false dignity with which the whole prison was impregnated.

They did not, however, disapprove of all the jokers, nor treat them all like Scuratoff. Some of them were men who would stand no nonsense, and neither forgive nor forget. It was necessary to treat them with respect. One of these fellows was a good-natured, lively type, whom I did not see in his true colours until later on. He was a tall young man, with pleasant manners and not without good looks. His face, too, wore a comic expression. He was known as the Sapper because he had served in the Engineers. He belonged to the special section.

But all the serious-minded convicts were not so particular as the Little Russian, who could not bear to see people gay.

There were several prisoners who wished to be thought superior, either by virtue of their manual skill, of their general ingenuity, of their character, or of their wit. Many of them were intelligent and energetic, and achieved what they desired -a reputation for pre-eminence, that is to say, and the enjoyment of moral influence over their companions. They often hated one another, and were envied by the remainder of their fellow prisoners, upon whom they looked down with an air of dignity and condescension, never deigning to quarrel without good cause. Enjoying the favour of officialdom, they exercised some measure of authority at the place of work, and none of them would have lowered himself so far as to quarrel about a song. These men were most polite to me throughout my imprisonment, though by no means communicative.

At last we reached the river bank; a little lower down lay the old hulk which we were to break up, stuck fast in the ice. On the other side of the water was the blue steppe and the sad horizon. I expected to see the whole party set to work. Nothing of the kind happened: some immediately sat down casually on logs of wood that lay near the bank, and nearly all took from their pockets pouches of native tobacco-which was sold in leaf at the market at the rate of three kopecks a pound-and short wooden pipes. They lighted them while the soldiers encircled us and looked on with obvious boredom.

‘Who the devil had the idea of sinking this barge? ‘ asked one of the convicts in a loud voice, without addressing anyone in particular.

‘Were they very anxious, then, to have it broken up?’

‘The people were not afraid to give us work,’ said another.

‘Where are all those peasants going to work?’ said the first, after a short silence. He had not even heard his companion’s answer, and was pointing to the distance, where a troop of peasants were marching in file across the virgin snow.

All the convicts turned slowly in that direction, and began from mere idleness to laugh at the peasants as they approached.

One of them, the last of the line, was the source of particular amusement: he walked with his arms apart, his head on one side, and wore a tall pointed cap. His shadow was cast in clear outline on the white snow.

‘ Look at Petrovitch,’ said one of my companions, imitating the local accent. Oddly enough, the convicts looked down on the peasants, although they were for the most part peasants themselves.

‘Look at that fellow on the end, he looks as if he were planting radishes.’

‘He’s an important chap, he has lots of money,’ said a third.

They all began to laugh without, however, seeming genuinely amused.

Meanwhile a scone-seller had approached. She was a brisk, lively person, and it was with her that the five kopecks given by the townsman were spent.

The young fellow who sold white bread in the prison took two dozen of her scones, and then tried beating down the price. She would not, however, agree to his terms.

At this point the sergeant in charge arrived, cane in hand.

‘What are you sitting down for? Get on with your work.’

‘Detail us off, Ivan Matveitch,’ said one of our so-called foremen, as he slowly got up.

‘You know your jobs. Dismantle that barge and quick about it.’

At last the convicts rose and made their way slowly down to the river. Instructions now fell thick and fast. The barge, it seemed, was not to be actually broken up: the skeleton of the hull was to be left intact, and this was not an easy thing to manage.

‘Pull this beam out, that’s the first thing to do,’ cried one convict, a mere navvy who knew nothing whatever about it. This man, very quiet and a little stupid, had not previously spoken. He now bent down, took hold of a heavy beam with both hands, and waited for someone to help him. No one, however, seemed inclined to do so.

‘You! You’ll never manage it; not even your grandad the bear could do it,’ muttered someone between his teeth.

‘Well, chum, are we going to make a start? I can’t carry on alone,’ said the other morosely, and he stood upright.

‘Well, what’s the hurry unless you’re going to do the whole job on your own?’

‘ I was only making a remark,’ said the poor fellow, excusing himself for his forwardness.

‘Must you have blankets to keep yourselves warm, or do you want to be otherwise heated this winter?’ bellowed a corporal at the twenty men who seemed to loathe to begin work. ‘Get on with it at once.’

‘It’s never any use being in a hurry, Ivan Matveitch.’

‘Look here, Savelieff, you’re doing nothing at all. What are you looking about for? Are your eyes for sale, by any chance? Come along now.’

‘But I can’t do the work single-handed.’

‘Tell each of us what to do, Ivan Matveitch.’

‘I told you before that I have no special tasks to give you. Get to work on the barge, and when you’ve finished we’ll go back home. Get on with your work, I tell you.’

The prisoners began work, but without much vigour or goodwill, and the sergeant in charge was understandably furious. While the first rivet was being drawn it suddenly snapped.

‘It broke in pieces,’ said a convict in self-justification. Impossible, they all clamoured, to carry on like this. What was to be done? A long discussion took place between the prisoners, and little by little they began to quarrel; nor did this seem likely to be the end of it. The sergeant was yelling and brandishing his cane, but the second rivet snapped like the first. It was then agreed that hatchets were of no use, and that other tools must be procured. Accordingly, two prisoners were sent under escort to the fortress to get the proper instruments. Awaiting their return, the others quite calmly sat down on the bank, pulled out their pipes, and began once more to smoke. Finally, the sergeant spat with contempt.

‘Well,’ he exclaimed,
‘you
people won’t die from overwork. My God, what a crowd! ‘ he grumbled, ill-humouredly. He shrugged his shoulders and went off towards the fortress, waving his stick.

An hour later the clerk of works arrived. He listened quietly to what the convicts had to say, told them that the job he wanted them to do was only to detach four rivets without breaking them, and partially dismantle the barge. As soon as this was done, they could go home. The task was not easy, but, lord! how the convicts now set to work! Where now was their idleness, their want of skill? Hatchets began to dance, and the rivets were quickly sprung. Those who had no hatchets made use of thick sticks to push beneath the rivets, and thus in due time and in artistic fashion they levered them out. The convicts seemed suddenly to have become intelligent in their conversation, and no more insults were heard. Everyone knew perfectly what to say, to do, and what to advise. Exactly half an hour before the beating of the drum, the appointed task was finished, and we returned to the prison fatigued, but pleased to have knocked off thirty minutes from the regular working hours.

As regards myself, I have only one remark to make: I seemed all the time to be in somebody’s way, I was told to ‘ get out of the light,’ and generally abused. Any one of the ragged lot, the most miserable, numbskull, ham-handed navvy, who would not have dared to utter a syllable to the other convicts, took upon himself to swear at me if I approached him, under pretext that I interfered with him in his work. At last one of the better types said to me frankly but coarsely:

‘What are you doing here? Clear off! No one asked for your help.’