“I should like some tea, but I am ashamed to ask; we have our pride!” observed the convict with the protruding lip, looking good-naturedly at us.
“I’ll give you some, if you like,” I said, inviting the convict to have tea, “would you like some?”
“Like it? To be sure I’d like it.”
He came up to the table.
“At home he ate broth out of a shoe, but here he’s learnt to like tea; and wants to drink it like the gentry,” the gloomy convict pronounced.
“Why, does no one drink tea here?” I asked him. But he did not deign to answer me.
“Here they are bringing rolls. Mayn’t we have a roll too?” Rolls were brought in. A young convict brought in a whole bundle and was selling them in the prison. The baker girl used to give him one roll out of every ten he sold; he was reckoning on that tenth roll.
“Rolls, rolls!” he cried, entering the kitchen. “Moscow rolls, all hot! I’d eat them myself, but I haven’t the money. Come, lads, the last roll is left; surely someone, for his mother’s sake?”
This appeal to filial affection amused everyone and several rolls were bought.
“I say, lads,” he announced, “Gazin will get into trouble, the way he’s carrying on! Upon my word, he has pitched on a time to drink! Ten to one, Eight-Eyes will be round.”
“They’ll hide him. Why, is he very drunk?”
“Rather! He is wild, he is pestering everyone.”
“Oh, it will end in a fight then. …”
“Of whom are they talking?” I asked the Pole, who had sat down beside me.
“It’s Gazin, a convict. He does a trade in vodka here. When he’s saved up money enough, he spends it in drink. He is spiteful and cruel; when he is sober he is quiet, though; when he is drunk it all comes out; he flies at people with a knife. Then they have to restrain him.”
“How do they restrain him?”
“A dozen convicts fall upon him and begin beating him horribly until he loses consciousness, they beat him till he is half dead. Then they lay him on the bed and cover him with a sheepskin.”
“But they may kill him!”
“Anyone else would have been killed by now but not he. He is awfully strong, stronger than anyone in the prison and of the healthiest constitution. Next day he is perfectly well.”
“Tell me, please,” I went on questioning the Pole; “here they are eating their own food while I drink my tea. And yet they look as though they were envious of the tea. What does it mean?”
“It’s not because of the tea,” answered the Pole. “They are ill-disposed to you because you are a gentleman and not like them. Many of them would like to pick a quarrel with you. They would dearly like to insult you, to humiliate you. You will meet with a lot of unpleasantness here. We have an awfully hard time. It’s harder for us than for any of them. One needs to be philosophical to get used to it. You will meet unpleasantness and abuse again and again for having your own food and tea, though very many of them here frequently have their own food, and some have tea every day. They may, but you mustn’t.”
He got up and went away from the table: a few minutes later his words came true.
III
First Impressions
M⸺y (the Pole who had been talking to me) had scarcely gone out when Gazin rolled into the kitchen, hopelessly drunk.
This convict, drunk in broad daylight, on a working day when all were bound to be out at work, under the rule of a stern officer who might come into the prison at any moment, under the control of the sergeant who never left the prison, with guards and sentries about—in short in the midst of severity and discipline—threw into confusion all the ideas I had begun to form of prison life. And I was a long time before I could explain to myself all the facts which were so puzzling to me during my early days in prison.
I have mentioned already that the convicts always had private work of their own and that such work was a natural craving in prison life; that, apart from this craving, the prisoner is passionately fond of money, and prizes it above everything, almost as much as freedom, and that he is comforted if he has it jingling in his pocket. On the other hand, he becomes dejected, sad, uneasy and out of spirits when he has none, and then he is ready to steal or do anything to get it. But, though money was so precious in prison, it never stayed long with the lucky man who had it. To begin with, it was difficult to keep it from being stolen or taken away. If the major discovered it in the course of a sudden search, he promptly confiscated it. Possibly he spent it on improving the prison fare; anyway, it was taken to him. But much more frequently it was stolen; there was no one who could be relied upon. Later on, we discovered a way of keeping money quite securely: it was put into the keeping of an Old Believer who came to us from the Starodubovsky settlements.
He was a little grey-headed man of sixty. He made a vivid impression on me from the first minute. He was so unlike the other convicts, there was something so calm and gentle in his expression that I remember I looked with a peculiar pleasure at his serene, candid eyes, which were surrounded with tiny wrinkles like rays. I often talked to him and I have rarely met a more kindly, warmhearted creature in my life. He had been sent there for a very serious offence. Among the Starodubovsky Old Believers, some converts to the Orthodox Church were
