The House of the Dead

pale with high cheek bones and fearless eyes, with a rather pleasant face, fine white close-set teeth, and an everlasting plug of tobacco between them and his lower lip. This habit of holding tobacco in the mouth was common among the convicts. He seemed younger than his age. He was forty and looked no more than thirty. He always talked to me without a trace of constraint, and treated me exactly as his equal, that is, behaved with perfect good-breeding and delicacy. If he noticed, for instance, that I was anxious to be alone, he would leave me in two or three minutes after a few words of conversation, and he always thanked me for attending to him, a courtesy which he never showed, of course, to anyone else in prison. It is curious that such relations continued between us for several years and never became more intimate, though he really was attached to me. I cannot to this day make up my mind what he wanted of me, why he came to me every day. Though he did happen to steal from me later on, he stole, as it were, by accident; he scarcely ever asked me for money, so he did not come for the sake of money or with any interested motive.

I don’t know why, but I always felt as though he were not living in prison with me, but somewhere far away in another house in the town, and that he only visited the prison in passing, to hear the news, to see me, to see how we were all getting on. He was always in a hurry, as though he had left someone waiting for him, or some job unfinished. And yet he did not seem flustered. The look in his eyes, too, was rather strange: intent, with a shade of boldness and mockery. Yet he looked, as it were, into the distance, as though beyond the things that met his eyes he were trying to make out something else, far away. This gave him an absentminded look. I sometimes purposely watched where Petrov went when he left me. Where was someone waiting for him? But he would hurry away from me to a prison ward or a kitchen, would sit down there beside some convicts, listen attentively to their conversation and sometimes take part in it himself, even speaking with heat; then he would suddenly break off and relapse into silence. But whether he were talking or sitting silent, it always appeared that he did so for a moment in passing, that he had something else to do and was expected elsewhere. The strangest thing was that he never had anything to do: he led a life of absolute leisure (except for the regulation work, of course). He knew no sort of trade and he scarcely ever had any money. But he did not grieve much over the lack of it. And what did he talk to me about? His conversation was as strange as himself. He would see, for instance, that I was walking alone behind the prison and would turn abruptly in my direction. He always walked quickly and turned abruptly.

He walked up, yet it seemed he must have been running.

“Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“I am not interrupting you?”

“No.”

“I wanted to ask you about Napoleon. He is a relation of the one who was here in 1812, isn’t he?” (Petrov was a kantonist and could read and write.)

“Yes.”

“He is some sort of president, they say, isn’t he?”

He always asked rapid, abrupt questions, as though he were in a hurry to learn something. It seemed as though he were investigating some matter of great importance which would not admit of any delay.

I explained how he was a president and added that he might soon be an emperor.

“How is that?”

I explained that too, as far as I could. Petrov listened attentively, understanding perfectly and reflecting rapidly, even turning his ear towards me.

“H’m⁠ ⁠… I wanted to ask you, Alexandr Petrovitch: is it true, as they say, that there are monkeys with arms down to their heels and as big as a tall man?”

“Yes, there are.”

“What are they like?”

That, too, I explained as far as I was able.

“And where do they live?”

“In hot countries. There are some in the island of Sumatra.”

“That’s in America, isn’t it? Don’t they say that the people in those parts walk on their heads?”

“Not on their heads. You mean the Antipodes.”

I explained what America was like and what was meant by the Antipodes. He listened as attentively as though he had come simply to hear about the Antipodes.

“A‑ah! Last year I read about the Countess La Vallière. Arefyev got the book from the adjutant’s. Is it true or is it just invented? It’s written by Dumas.”

“It’s invented, of course.”

“Well, goodbye. Thank you.”

And Petrov vanished, and we rarely talked except in this style.

I began inquiring about him. M. positively warned me when he heard of the acquaintance. He told me that many of the convicts had inspired him with horror, especially at first, in his early days in prison; but not one of them, not even Gazin, had made such a terrible impression on him as this Petrov.

“He is the most determined, the most fearless of all the convicts,” said M. “He is capable of anything; he would stick at nothing if the fancy took him. He would murder you if it happened to strike him; he would murder you in a minute without flinching or giving it a thought afterwards. I believe he is not quite in his right mind.”

This view interested me very much. But M. could give me no reason for thinking so. And strange to say, I knew Petrov for several years afterwards and talked to him almost every day, he was genuinely attached to me all that time (though I am absolutely unable to say why) and all those years he behaved well in prison and did nothing horrible, yet every time I looked at