But why talk of it? I had better describe something else that I may not end too abruptly.
It occurs to me that someone may ask, was it really impossible for anyone to escape from prison, and did no one escape in all those years? As I have said already, a prisoner who has spent two or three years in prison begins to attach a value to those years and cannot help coming to the conclusion that it is better to serve the rest of his time without trouble and risk and leave the prison finally in the legal way as a “settler.” But this conclusion can only occur to a convict who has been sentenced to a brief term. The man with many years before him might well be ready to risk anything. But somehow this did not often happen in our prison. I don’t know whether it was that they were very cowardly, whether the supervision was particularly strict and military, whether the situation of our town in the open steppes was in many ways unfavourable; it is hard to say. I imagine all these considerations had their influence. Certainly it was rather difficult to escape from us. And yet one such case did happen in my time; two convicts ventured on the attempt and those two were among the most important criminals.
After the major had gone, A. (the convict who had played the spy for him in the prison) was left quite friendless and unprotected. He was still young, but his character had grown stronger and steadier as he grew older. He was altogether a bold, resolute and even very intelligent man. Though he would have gone on spying and making his living in all sorts of underhand ways if he had been given his freedom, he would not have been caught so stupidly and imprudently as before and have paid so dearly for his folly. While he was in prison, he practised making false passports a little. I cannot speak with certainty about this, however. But I was told so by the convicts. It was said that he used to work in that line at the time when he frequented the major’s kitchen and of course he picked up all he could there. In short he was capable of anything “to change his luck.” I had an opportunity of reading his character and seeing to some extent into his mind; cynicism in him reached a pitch of revolting impudence and cold mockery, and it excited an invincible repugnance. I believe that, if he had had a great desire for a glass of vodka and if he could not have got it except by murdering someone, he would certainly have committed the murder, if he could only have done it in secret so that no one could discover it. In prison he learnt prudence. And this man caught the attention of Kulikov, a convict in the special division.
I have already spoken of Kulikov. He was a man no longer young, but passionate, vital, vigorous, with great and varied abilities. There was strength in him and he still had a longing for life. Such men feel the same thirst for life up to extreme old age. And if I had wondered why none of the convicts escaped from the prison, the first I should have thought of would have been Kulikov. But Kulikov made up his mind at last. Which of them had the most influence on the other—A. on Kulikov or Kulikov on A.—I do not know, but they were a match for one another and well suited for such an enterprise. They became friends. I fancy Kulikov reckoned on A.’s preparing the passports. A. was a “gentleman,” had belonged to good society; that promised something different from the usual adventures, if only they could get to Russia. Who can tell how they came to an agreement and what hopes they had? But it is certain that they were hoping for something very different from the usual routine of tramping in Siberia. Kulikov was an actor by nature; he could play many and varied parts in life; he might hope for many things, at least for a great variety of things. Prison must weigh heavily on such men. They agreed to escape.
But it was impossible to escape without the help of a guard. They had to persuade a guard to join them. In one of the battalions stationed in the fortress there was a Pole, a man of energy, deserving perhaps of a better fate; he was middle-aged and serious, but he was a fine, spirited fellow. In his youth, soon after he had come as a soldier to Siberia, he had deserted from intense homesickness. He was caught, punished and kept for two years in a disciplinary battalion. When he was sent back to serve as an ordinary soldier again, he thought better of it and began to be zealous and to do his best in his work. For distinguished service he was made a corporal. He was an ambitious, self-reliant man who knew his own value. He spoke and looked like a man who knows his own value. I met him several times during those years among our guards. The Poles too, had spoken of him to me. It seemed to me that his homesickness had turned to a hidden, dumb, unchanging hatred. This man was capable of doing anything and Kulikov was right in choosing him as a comrade. His name was Koller.
They agreed and fixed on a day. It was in the hot days of June. The climate was fairly equable in our town; in the summer there was hot settled weather, and that just suited tramps. Of course they could not set off straight from the fortress; the whole town stands on rising ground open on all sides. There was
