The House of the Dead

once went to the guardhouse and punished the “ringleaders,” not very cruelly, however. He hurried over it, in fact. One of them, we were told afterwards, begged his pardon, and was at once let off. It was evident that the major was not perfectly at his ease, and was perhaps even a little scared. A complaint is always a ticklish matter, and though the convicts’ protest could hardly be called a complaint, because it was presented not to a higher authority, but to the major himself, yet it was awkward, it was not the right thing. What disconcerted him most was that almost all the prisoners had taken part in the protest. He must suppress it at all costs. They soon released the ringleaders. Next day the food was better, but the improvement did not last long. For some days afterwards the major visited the prison more frequently and found fault more frequently. Our sergeant went about looking anxious and perplexed, as though he could not get over his amazement. As for the convicts they could not settle down for a long time afterwards, but they were not so much excited as before, they were in a state of dumb perplexity and bewilderment. Some of them were deeply despondent. Others expressed their discontent, but sparingly. Many in their exasperation jeered at themselves aloud, as though to punish themselves for having got up the protest.

“Put it in your pipe and smoke it,” someone would say.

“We had our joke and now we must pay for it!” another would add.

“What mouse can bell the cat?” observed a third.

“There’s no teaching us without the stick, we all know. It’s a good thing he didn’t flog us all.”

“For the future think more and talk less and you’ll do better!” someone would observe malignantly.

“Why, are you setting up to teach?”

“To be sure I am.”

“And who are you to put yourself forward?”

“Why, I am a man so far, and who are you?”

“You are a dog’s bone, that’s what you are.”

“That’s what you are.”

“There, there, shut up! What’s the shindy about!” the others shouted at the disputants from all sides.

The same evening, that is on the day of the complaint, on my return from work, I met Petrov behind the barracks. He was looking for me. Coming up to me he muttered something, two or three vague exclamations, but soon relapsed into absentminded silence and walked mechanically beside me. All this affair was still painfully weighing on my heart, and I fancied that Petrov could explain something to me.

“Tell me, Petrov,” said I, “are they angry with us?”

“Who angry?” he asked, as though waking up.

“The convicts angry with us⁠—the gentlemen.”

“Why should they be angry with you?”

“Because we did not take part in the complaint.”

“But why should you make a complaint?” he asked, as though trying to understand me. “You buy your own food.”

“Good heavens! But some of you who joined in it buy your own food too. We ought to have done the same⁠—as comrades.”

“But⁠ ⁠… but how can you be our comrades?” he asked in perplexity.

I looked at him quickly; he did not understand me in the least, he did not know what I was driving at. But I understood him thoroughly at that instant. A thought that had been stirring vaguely within me and haunting me for a long time had at last become clear to me, and I suddenly understood what I had only imperfectly realized. I understood that they would never accept me as a comrade, however much I might be a convict, not if I were in for life, not if I were in the special division. But I remember most clearly Petrov’s face at that minute. His question “how can you be our comrade?” was full of such genuine simplicity, such simple-hearted perplexity. I wondered if there were any irony, any malicious mockery in the question. There was nothing of the sort: simply we were not their comrades and that was all. You go your way, and we go ours; you have your affairs, and we have ours.

And indeed I had expected that after the complaint they would simply torment us to death without mercy, and that life would be impossible for us. Nothing of the sort, we did not hear one word of reproach, not a hint of reproach; there was no increase of ill-feeling against us. They simply gibed at us a little on occasions, as they had done before, nothing else. They were not in the least angry either with the other convicts who had remained in the kitchen, and not joined in the complaint; nor with those who had first shouted that they were satisfied. No one even referred to it. This last fact puzzled me especially.

VIII

Comrades

I was, of course, most attracted to the men of my own sort, the “gentlemen” that is, especially at first. But of the three Russian convicts of that class who were in our prison (Akim Akimitch, the spy A., and the man who was believed to have killed his father) the only one I knew and talked to was Akim Akimitch. I must confess that I resorted to Akim Akimitch only so to say in despair, at moments of the most intense boredom and when there was no prospect of speaking to anyone else. In the last chapter, I have tried to arrange all the convicts in classes, but, now I recall Akim Akimitch, I think that one might add another class. It is true that he would be the only representative of it, that is the class of the absolutely indifferent convicts. Absolutely indifferent convicts, those that is to whom it was a matter of indifference whether they lived in prison or in freedom, one would have supposed did not and could not exist, but I think Akim Akimitch was an example of one. He had established himself in prison, indeed, as though he meant to spend his life there; everything about him, his mattress, his