Notes from Underground & The House of the Dead. Федор Достоевский
he endured prison life, one felt that he was tormented by a profound, incurable melancholy. I slept in the same barrack with him. One night, towards three o’clock in the morning, I woke up and heard a slow, stifled sob. The old man was sitting on the stove-the same place where the convict who had wished to kill the governor used to pray-and was reading from his manuscript prayer-book. As he wept I heard him repeating ‘Lord, do not forsake me. Master, strengthen me. My poor little children, my dear little children, we shall never see one another again.’ I cannot say how much this moved me.
We used, then, to entrust our money to this old man. Heaven knows how the idea got abroad in our barrack that he could not be robbed. It was well known that he hid the savings deposited with him, but no one had been able to discover where. He revealed it to us-to the Poles and myself. One of the stakes in the palisade bore a branch which appeared to belong to it, but which could be removed and put back again. When it was removed a hole could be seen, and this was his hiding-place.
But to return to my story. Why is it that a convict never saves his money? Well, not only is it difficult for him to keep it, but prison life is so miserable that a man, of his very nature, thirsts for freedom of action. His position in society makes him so irregular a being that the idea of swallowing up his capital in orgies, of intoxicating himself with revelry seems to him quite natural if only he can procure himself one moment’s forgetfulness. It was strange to see certain individuals bent over their labour with the sole object of spending their earnings in a single day, even to the last kopeck. Then they would set to work again until they could afford another debauch, which was looked forward to months beforehand.
Some convicts were fond of new clothes, more or less singular in style, such as fancy trousers and waistcoats; but it was above all for coloured shirts that they had a pronounced taste; also for belts with metal clasps.
On holidays the prison dandies wore their Sunday best. They were worth seeing as they strutted about their part of the barracks. Their pleasure in feeling themselves well dressed amounted to childishness; indeed, in many things convicts are only children. Their fine clothes, however, disappeared very soon, often in the evening of the very day on which they had been bought. Their owners pledged them or sold them again for a trifle.
Merrymaking generally took place at fixed times. It coincided with religious festivals, or with the nameday of some bibulous convict. On getting up in the morning he would place a wax taper before the ikon; then he said his prayers, dressed, and ordered his dinner. He had previously bought meat, fish, and little patties, which he gorged like an ox and almost always alone. It was very rare to see one convict invite another to share his repast. At dinner vodka was produced. The convict would suck it up like the sole of a boot, and then walk through the barracks swaggering and tottering. He was anxious to show his companions that although he was drunk* he was carrying on, and thus obtain their particular esteem.
The Russians always feel a measure of sympathy for a drunken man; among us it amounted really to esteem. In prison intoxication was regarded as a sort of aristocratic distinction.
As soon as he felt himself in high spirits the convict sent for a musician. We had among us a little fellow-a deserter from the army-very ugly, but who was the happy possessor of a violin on which he could play. As he had no trade he was always ready to follow the festive convia from barrack to barrack grinding out dance tunes for him with all his strength. His countenance often expressed the fatigue and disgust which his music-always the same-caused hum; but when his employer shouted at him, ‘Go on playing, aren’t you paid for it?’ he attacked his violin more strenuously than ever. These drunkards felt sure that they would be taken care of, and in case of the governor arriving would be concealed from his watchful eye. This service we rendered in the most disinterested spirit. On their side the under-office and the old soldiers who remained in the prison to keep order, were perfectly reassured. The drunkard would cause no disturbance. At the least scare of revolt or riot he would have been silenced and tied up. Accordingly the subordinate officials closed their eyes; they knew that if vodka was forbidden all would go wrong. How was this vodka procured?
It was bought in the prison itself from drink-sellers, as they were called, who followed this trade-a very lucrative one, although the tipplers were not very numerous, for revelry was expensive, especially when it is considered how hardly money was earned. The drink business began, continued, and ended in rather an original manner. A prisoner who knew no trade, who would not work, but who, nevertheless, desired to get rich quickly, made up his mind, when he possessed a little money, to buy and sell vodka. The enterprise was risky and required great daring, for the speculator hazarded his skin as well as his liquor. But the drink-seller hesitated before no obstacles. At the outset he brought the vodka himself to the prison and got rid of it on the most advantageous terms. He repeated this operation a second and a third time. If he had not been discovered by the officials, he now possessed a sum which enabled him to extend his business. He became a capitalist with agents and assistants; he risked much less and gained much more. Then his assistants incurred the risk instead of him.
Prisons are always full of degraded types who have never learned to work, but who are endowed with skill and daring: their only capital is their back. They often decide to put it into circulation, and propose to the drink-seller to introduce vodka into the barracks. There is always in the town a soldier, a shopkeeper, or some loose woman who, for a stipulated sum-quite a small one-buys vodka with the drink-seller’s money, hides it in a place known to the convictsmuggler, near the workshop where he is employed. The person who supplies the vodka almost always tastes the precious liquid as he is carrying it to the hiding-place, and never hesitates to replace what he has drunk with pure water. The purchaser may take it or leave it, but he cannot take a high hand. Rather, he thinks himself very lucky that his money has not been stolen, and that he has received some kind of vodka in exchange. The man who is to take it into the prison-to whom the drink-seller has made known the hiding-place-goes to the source of supply with bullock’s intestines (which have been washed and ruled with water, and which thus preserve their softness and suppleness), fills them with vodka, and rolls them round his body. Now all the cunning, the adroitness of this daring convict is shown. The man’s honour is at stake. It is necessary for him to deceive the escort and sentry; and deceive them he will. If the carrier is artful, the escort-sometimes a mere recruit-notices nothing unusual, for the prisoner has studied him thoroughly and has artfully combined the hour and the place of meeting. If the convict-a bricklayer, for example-climbs up on a wall that he is building, the escort will certainly not climb up after him to watch his movements. Who then, will see what he is about? On nearing the prison, he gets ready a piece of fifteen or twenty kopecks, and waits at the gate for the corporal on guard.
The corporal examines, feels, and searches each convict on his return to barracks, “and then opens the gate to him. The smuggler hopes he will be too modest to search him too much in detail. But if the corporal is a cunning fellow, that is just what he will do: and in that case he finds the contraband vodka. The convict has now only one chance of salvation. He slips into the corporal’s hand the coin which he holds ready, and often, thanks to this manuvre, the vodka arrives safely in the hands of the drink-seller. Sometimes, however, the trick does not succeed, and it is then that the smuggler’s sole capital really enters into circulation. A report is made to the governor, who sentences the unhappy culprit to a thorough flogging. As for the vodka, it is confiscated. The smuggler undergoes his punishment without betraying the speculator, not because such a denunciation would disgrace him, but because it would bring him nothing. He would be flogged all the same, and his only consolation would be that the drink-seller would share his punishment; but as he needs him he does not denounce him, although, having allowed himself to be surprised, he will receive no payment.
Denunciation, however, flourishes in prison. Far from hating spies or keeping apart from them, the convicts often make friends of them. If anyone had taken it into his head to try and prove to them the baseness of betraying a fellow prisoner, no one would have understood. The former nobleman of whom I have already spoken, that cowardly and violent creature with whom I had broken off all relations immediately after my arrival in the fortress, was a friend of Fedka, the governor’s body-servant. He used to tell him everything that went on, all of which was naturally passed on to the servant’s master. Everyone knew it, but no one thought of showing any ill will against the man, or of reproaching him