The House of the Dead

is well known to all the convicts throughout Russia that the people most compassionate to them are doctors. They never make any distinction between convicts and other people as almost all outsiders do, except, perhaps, the peasants. The latter never reproach the convict with his crime, however terrible it may have been, and forgive him everything on account of the punishment he has endured and his general misery. Significantly the peasants all over Russia speak of crime as a misfortune, and of criminals as the unfortunate. It is a definition of deep import, and it is the more significant because it is unconscious, instinctive. The doctors are truly a refuge for the convicts in many cases, especially for those awaiting punishment, who are kept far more severely than the ordinary prisoners. The convict awaiting punishment, who has reckoned the probable date of the awful ordeal, often gets into hospital, trying to ward off the terrible moment, even by a little. When he is taking his discharge from the hospital, knowing almost for certain that the fatal hour will be next day, he is nearly always in a state of violent agitation. Some try from vanity to conceal their feelings, but their awkward show of swagger does not deceive their companions. Everyone understands how it is, but is silent from humane feeling.

I knew a convict, a young man who had been a soldier, condemned for murder to the maximum number of strokes. He was so panic-stricken that on the eve of the punishment he drank off a jug of vodka, in which he had previously soaked snuff. Vodka, by the way, is always taken just before the flogging. It is smuggled in long before the day, and a high price is paid for it. The convict would rather go without every necessity for six months than fail to have the money for a bottle of vodka to be drunk a quarter of an hour before the flogging. There is a general belief among the convicts that a drunken man feels the lash or the sticks less acutely. But I am wandering from my story. The poor fellow after drinking his jug of vodka was at once taken ill in earnest: he began vomiting blood and he was carried to the hospital almost unconscious. The vomiting so affected his chest, that in a few days he showed unmistakable signs of consumption, of which he died six months later. The doctors who treated him for tuberculosis did not know how it had been caused.

But, speaking of the cowardice so often found in the convict before punishment, I ought to add that some, on the contrary, astonish the observer by their extraordinary fearlessness. I remember some examples of courage which approached insensibility, and such examples were not so very rare. I particularly remember my meeting with a terrible criminal. One summer day a rumour spread in the hospital wards that a famous robber, a runaway soldier called Orlov, would be punished that evening, and would be afterwards brought to the ward. While the convict patients were expecting Orlov to be brought in, they asserted that he would be punished cruelly. They were all in some excitement, and I must confess that I, too, awaited the famous robber’s arrival with extreme curiosity. I had heard marvellous stories about him long before. He was a criminal such as there are few, who had murdered old people and children in cold blood⁠—a man of a terrible strength of will and proud consciousness of his strength. He had confessed to many murders, and was sentenced to be beaten with sticks.

It was evening before he was brought. It was dark and the candles had been lighted in the ward. Orlov was almost unconscious, horribly pale, with thick, dishevelled pitch-black hair. His back was swollen and red and blue. The convicts were waiting on him all night, constantly bringing him water, turning him over, giving him medicines, as though they were looking after a brother or a benefactor. Next day he regained consciousness completely, and walked twice up and down the ward! It amazed me: he had come into the hospital so very weak and exhausted. He had received at one time half of the whole number of blows to which he was sentenced. The doctor had only stopped the punishment when he saw that its continuance would inevitably cause his death. Moreover, Orlov was small and weakly built and exhausted by long imprisonment before his trial. Anyone who has met prisoners awaiting their trial probably remembers long after their thin, pale, worn-out faces, their feverish looks. But, in spite of that, Orlov was recovering quickly. Evidently the energy of his spirit assisted nature. He was certainly not an ordinary man. I was moved by curiosity to make a closer acquaintance with him, and for a week I studied him. I can confidently say that I have never in my life met a man of such strength, of so iron a will as he. I had already seen at Tobolsk a celebrity of the same kind, formerly a brigand chief. He was a wild beast in the fullest sense of the word, and when you stood near him you felt instinctively that there was a terrible creature beside you, even before you knew his name. But in that case what horrified, me was the spiritual deadness of the man. The flesh had so completely got the upper hand of all spiritual characteristics, that at the first glance you could see from his face that nothing was left but a fierce lust of physical gratification⁠—sensuality, gluttony. I am convinced that Korenev⁠—that was the brigand’s name⁠—would have been in a panic and trembling with fear before a flogging, although he could cut a man’s throat without turning a hair.

Orlov was a complete contrast to him. His was unmistakably the case of a complete triumph over the flesh. It was evident that the man’s power of control was unlimited, that he despised every