Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (199 page)

I have again wandered from my subject. I wish only to say that the common people mistrust and dislike officialdom and doctors as representatives of the Government, rather than the doctors themselves; but, as I have said, on personal acquaintance many prejudices disappear.

Our doctor generally stopped before the bed of each patient, examined him carefully, and then prescribed the remedies, potions, etc. He sometimes noticed that a pretended invalid was not ill at all: he had come to take a rest after hard labour, and to sleep on a mattress in a warm room, which was so much better than bare boards in a damp guard-house among a mass of pale, broken-down men awaiting trial. The inhabitants of a Russian guard-house are almost always in bad health, which proves their condition, both moral and material, to be worse than that of the convicts.

In cases of malingering our doctor would describe the patient as suffering from
febris catharalis,
and sometimes allow him to remain a week in hospital. Everyone laughed at this
febris catharalis,
for it was known to be a formula agreed upon by both doctor and patient to indicate no malady at all. A malingerer would often take advantage of the doctor’s compassion and remain in hospital until he was turned out by force. Our doctor was worth seeing on such an occasion. Embarrassed by the prisoner’s obstinacy, he did not like to tell him plainly that he was cured and hand him his discharge, although he had the right to send him out without explanation by writing the words,
sanat. est.
He would first drop a hint that it was time to leave, and would then politely request him to do so.

‘You must go; you know you are cured now, and we have no room for you; we’re terribly overcrowded,’ etc.

At last, ashamed to remain any longer, the patient would consent to go. The physician-in-chief, although compassionate and just (the patients were much attached to him), was incomparably more severe and more firm than our ordinary physician. In certain cases he showed merciless severity which only gained for him the respect of the convicts. He always entered the room accompanied by every doctor on the staff, and leaving his assistants to call at every bed and diagnose the various cases, he would stop longest at the bedsides of those who were seriously ill, and had an encouraging word for each. He never threw out those who arrived with
febris catharalis;
but if one of them appeared determined to remain in hospital, he certified the man as cured. ‘Come,’ he would say, ‘you have had your rest. Now go, you must not take advantage.’

Those who insisted on remaining were principally the convicts who were worn out by field labour during the great summer heat, or prisoners who had been sentenced to be whipped. I remember one occasion upon which the hospital staff were obliged to be particularly severe in order to get rid of one such man. He was suffering from acute inflammation of the eyes, and complained of a sharp pain in his eyelids.

He was incurable: plasters, blisters, leeches, nothing did him any good, and the diseased organ remained in the same condition.

It then occurred to the doctors that there was nothing at all wrong with him, for the inflammation became neither worse nor better, and despite the man’s refusal to admit it they soon realized that the whole thing was a complete farce. He was a fine young fellow, not bad-looking, though his companions found him disagreeable. He was suspicious, sombre, full of dissimulation, and never looked anyone straight in the face; he also kept himself apart as if he mistrusted us all. I remember that many were afraid he would do someone harm.

Having committed some small theft in the army, he had been arrested and condemned to receive a thousand strokes, and afterwards to pass into a penal battalion.

I have already explained that in order to postpone their punishment, convicts will do incredible things. On the eve of the fatal day they will stab one of their officers or a comrade, which will necessitate their being tried again for this new offence, and thereby delay the punishment for a month or two. It matters little to them that they will ultimately suffer a fate twice or three times as terrible if only they can escape this time. What they desire is to put off temporarily the dreaded moment at whatever cost, so utterly does their heart fail them.

Many of the patients thought the man with the sore eyes should be watched, lest in his despair he should assassinate someone during the night; but no precaution was taken, not even by those who slept next to him. It was remarked, however, that he rubbed his eyes with plaster from the wall and with something else besides, in order that they might appear red when the doctor came round. At last the surgeon threatened to cure him by means of an operation, for when the malady will not yield to ordinary treatment, the practice is to try some more drastic and painful remedy. But the poor devil did not wish to get well-he was either too obstinate or too cowardly, for, however painful the process may be, it cannot be compared with the rods.

The operation consists in seizing the patient by the nape of the neck, taking up the skin, drawing it up as far as possible, and making a double incision, through which is passed a skein of cotton about as thick as the finger. Every day at a fixed hour this skein is pulled backwards and forwards in order that the wound may continually suppurate and not heal. The wretched man endured this torture, which caused him horrible suffering, for several days.

At last he agreed to his discharge, and in less than a day his eyes had quite recovered. As soon as his neck was healed he was sent to the guard-house, which he left next day to receive his first thousand strokes.

The moments preceding that punishment are so appalling that I may be wrong in charging those who fear it with cowardice.

It must indeed be terrible for a man to risk a double or even triple sentence merely in order to postpone it. I have made mention, however, in an earlier chapter, of convicts who have been anxious to leave hospital before the wounds caused by the first instalment of the flogging were healed, and get the whole thing over. Life in the guard-room is certainly worse than in a convict prison.

In some cases flogging tends to embolden a convict. Those who have been often flogged are hardened both in body and mind, and come at last to regard the punishment as no more than a disagreeable incident no longer to be feared.

One of our fellows in the special section was a converted Tartar; his name was Alexander, though the prisoners used to call him Alexandrina in fun. This man told me that he once received four thousand strokes. He never referred to the incident except with amusement and laughter, but he swore emphatically that if his horde had not reared him on the whip from his earliest years (as was testified by the scars which covered his back and refused to disappear), he would never have been able to endure those four thousand strokes. He blessed his education under the rod.

‘I was beaten for the least thing, Alexander Petrovitch,’ he said one evening as we sat down before the fire. ‘I was beaten without reason for fifteen years, as long as I can remember, and several times a day. Anyone beat me who cared to do so, until at last it made no impression upon me.’

I do not know how it was that he became a soldier; perhaps he was lying, and had always been a deserter and vagabond. Hut I do remember his telling me on that occasion how terrified he was when they condemned him to receive four thousand strokes for having killed one of his officers.

‘I know that they’ll punish me severely,’ he told himself. ‘ Accustomed as I am to being flogged, I may die under it. The devil!’ he said to me, ‘four thousand strokes is no trifle-and every officer in the regiment had his knife into me over this affair. I knew well that it would not be rose-water. I even believed I should die under the rods so I determined to get baptized. Like that there was just a chance they would not flog me: at any rate it was worth trying. My comrades told me it would be no good; but one could never tell, there was always that faint hope of a pardon; they were more lenient to a Christian than a Mohammedan. Anyway, they baptized me and gave me the name of Alexander, but in spite of that I had to take my flogging-I was not spared a single stroke. I was enraged and said to myself: “Wait a bit, and I’ll take you all in”; and, would you believe it, Alexander? I did take them all in. I knew how to look like a dead man; not that I appeared altogether without life, but I certainly appeared to be on the point of breathing my last. They led me in front of the battalion to receive my first thousand; my skin was burning, I began to howl. They gave me my second thousand, and I said to myself: “It’s all over now.” I was frantic and my legs seemed broken, so I fell to the ground with the eyes of a dead man. My face blue, and frothing at the mouth, I no longer breathed. When the doctor came he said I was on the point of death. I was carried to the hospital and at once returned to life. Twice again they flogged me. What a rage they were in! I took them all in on each occasion. I received my third thousand, and “died” again. On my word, when they gave me the last thousand each stroke ought to have counted for three, it was like a knife in my heart. Oh, how they beat me! They were so severe with me. Oh, that cursed fourth thousand! It was as bad as the first three together. If I had pretended to be dead when I had still two hundred to receive, I think they would have finished me off; but they did not get the better of me.

I had them again and again, for they always thought it was all over with me, and how could they have thought otherwise? The doctor was sure of it. But as for those two hundred, they might have struck as hard as they liked-two hundred or two thousand, it was all the same to me; I only laughed at them. Why? Because, when I was a youngster, I had grown up under the whip. Well, I’m alive and well now, but I have been beaten in the course of my life,’ he murmured indifferently as he ended his story. He seemed to remember it all and to be counting once again the blows he had received.

After a brief silence he said: ‘I can’t count them, nor can anyone else; there are not figures enough.’ He looked at me and burst into a laugh, so simple and natural, that I could not help smiling in return.

‘Do you know, Alexander Petrovitch, when I dream at night I always dream that I’m being flogged. I dream of nothing else.’ He did in fact talk in his sleep, and woke up the other prisoners.

‘What are you yelling about, you demon?’ they would ask him.

This strong, robust fellow was short in stature, about forty-four years of age, active, and good-looking. He lived on good terms with everyone, though he was very fond of taking what did not belong to him, and afterwards got beaten for it. But any convict who stole got beaten for his theft.

For the rest, I will only remark that I was always surprised at the extraordinary good nature, the absence of rancour with which these unhappy men spoke of their punishment and of the officers superintending it. In these stories, which often gave me palpitation of the heart, not a shadow of hatred or bitterness could be detected; they laughed like children at their sufferings.

There was, however, an exception-Mtski. As he was not of the nobility, he had been sentenced to be flogged but had never mentioned the fact to me. When I asked him if it were true, he replied affirmatively in two brief words but with evident pain and without looking at me. He flushed and when he raised his eyes I saw flames burning in them while his lips, trembled with indignation. I felt that he would not forget, that he could never forget this page of his history. But generally speaking my companions recalled their misfortunes in quite a different spirit. ‘It is impossible,’ I sometimes thought, ‘that they can be conscious of their guilt and not acknowledge the justice of their punishment, especially when their offences were against their own fellows and not against a superior.’ Most, however, did not acknowledge their guilt. I have already said that I never observed in them the least remorse, even for a crime committed against people of their own station. As for those against a superior, they were simply not mentioned. It seems to me that they took a peculiar view of such cases, regarding them as accidents caused by fate, into which they had fallen unwittingly as the result of some extraordinary impulse. The convict always justifies the crimes he has committed against his superiors; he does not trouble himself about the matter. But he admits that the victim cannot share his view, and consequently that proper punishment will restore the balance.

The struggle between authority and the prisoner is very bitter on both sides. What in great measure justifies the criminal in his own eyes is his conviction that the people among whom he has been born and has lived will acquit him. He is certain that the common people will not consider him a renegade, unless, indeed, he has sinned against persons of his own class, against his brethren. In that respect his mind is quite at rest: supported by his conscience, his heart will remain tranquil, and that is the principal thing. He feels himself on firm ground, and has no particular hatred for the knout when once the punishment is over. He knows that it was inevitable, and consoles himself with the knowledge that he was not the first and will not be the last to receive it. Does the soldier detest the Turk whom he fights? Not in the least! Yet he sabres him, hacks him to pieces, kills him.

It must not be thought, however, that all of these stories were told with indifference and in cold blood. When the name of Jerebiatnikof was mentioned it was always with indignation. I made the acquaintance of this officer during my first stay in hospital-though, of course, only by hearsay. Some time later I saw him in command of the prison guard. He was about thirty years old, very stout and very strong, with pendulous red cheeks, white teeth, and a formidable laugh. One could see at once that he was by no means intelligent. He took the greatest pleasure in whipping and flogging whenever he had to superintend the punishment. I must hasten to add that the other officers looked upon Jerebiatnikof as a monster, and the convicts did the same. That was in the good old days of not so very long ago, when (though it is hard to believe) the executioner delighted in his office, but the strokes were usually administered without enthusiasm.