“No, now it’s time to pull up! In Moscow, Pyotr drove like a lord, but now Pyotr sits and twists a cord,” and similar amenities were frequent.
They looked with enjoyment at our sufferings which we tried to conceal from them. We used to have a particularly bad time at work because we had not as much strength as they had and could not do our full share in helping them. Nothing is harder than to win the people’s confidence (especially such people’s) and to gain their love.
There were several men belonging to the upper classes in the prison. To begin with there were five or six Poles. I will speak of them separately later on. The convicts particularly disliked the Poles, even more than those who had been Russian gentlemen. The Poles (I am speaking only of the political prisoners) were elaborately, offensively polite and exceedingly uncommunicative with them. They never could conceal from the convicts their aversion for them, and the latter saw it very clearly and paid the Poles back in the same coin.
I spent nearly two years in the prison before I could succeed in gaining the goodwill of some of the convicts. But in the end most of them grew fond of me and recognized me as a “good” man.
There were four other Russians of the upper class besides me. One was a mean abject little creature, terribly depraved, a spy and informer by vocation. I had heard about him before I came to the prison, and broke off all relations with him after the first few days. Another was the parricide of whom I have spoken already. The third was Akim Akimitch; I have rarely met such a queer fellow as this Akim Akimitch. I have still a vivid recollection of him. He was tall, lean, dull-witted, awfully illiterate, very prosy and as precise as a German. The convicts used to laugh at him, but some of them were positively afraid to have anything to do with him, owing to his faultfinding, his exactingness and his readiness to take offence. He got on to familiar terms with them from the first, he quarrelled and even fought with them. He was phenomenally honest. If he noticed any injustice he always interfered, though it might have nothing to do with him. He was naive in the extreme; when he quarrelled with the convicts he sometimes reproached them with being thieves and seriously exhorted them not to steal. He had been a lieutenant in the Caucasus. We were friendly from the first day, and he immediately told me about his case. He began as a cadet in an infantry regiment in the Caucasus, plodded on steadily for a long time, was promoted to be an officer at last, and was sent as senior in command to a fortress. One of the allied chieftains burnt his fortress and made a night assault upon it. This was unsuccessful. Akim Akimitch was wily and gave no sign of knowing who had done it. The attack was attributed to the hostile tribes, and a month later Akim Akimitch invited the chieftain to visit him in a friendly way. The latter came, suspecting nothing. Akim Akimitch drew up his company, proved the chieftain’s guilt and upbraided him before them all, pointing out to him that it was shameful to burn fortresses. He discoursed to him in great detail on the way allied chiefs should behave in the future, and, in conclusion, shot him and at once sent in a full report of the proceedings to the authorities. For all this he was court martialled and condemned to death, but the sentence was commuted and he was sent to Siberia to penal servitude in the second division for twelve years. He fully recognized that he had acted irregularly. He told me he knew it even before he shot the chieftain, he knew that an ally ought to be legally tried; but, although he knew this, he seemed unable to see his guilt in its true light.
“Why, upon my word! Hadn’t he burnt my fortress? Was I to say thank you to him for it?” he said to me in reply to my objections.
But, although the convicts laughed at Akim Akimitch’s foolishness, they respected him for his preciseness and practical ability.
There was no handicraft which Akim Akimitch did not understand. He was a cabinetmaker, a cobbler, a shoemaker, a painter, a gilder, a locksmith, and he had learnt all this in the prison. He was self-taught in everything: he would take one look at a thing and do it. He used to make all sorts of little boxes, baskets, lanterns, children’s toys, and sold them in the town. In that way he made a little money and he immediately spent it on extra underclothes, on a softer pillow or a folding mattress. He was in the same room as I was, and was very helpful to me during my first days in prison.
When they went out from prison to work the convicts used to be drawn up in two rows before the guardhouse; in front of them and behind them, the soldiers were drawn up, with loaded muskets. An officer of the Engineers, the foreman and several engineers of the lower rank, who used to superintend our work, came out. The foreman grouped the convicts and sent them to work in parties where they were needed.
I went with the others to the engineers’ workshop. It was a low-pitched stone building standing in a large courtyard which was heaped up with all sorts of materials; there was a smithy, a locksmith’s shop, a carpenter’s, a painter’s and so on. Akim Akimitch used to come here and work at painting; he
