Some, of course, are not soon subdued even in prison. They still preserve a certain bravado, a certain boastfulness which seems to say “I am not what you take me for; I am in for six souls!” But yet he, too, ends by being subdued. Only at times he amuses himself by recalling his reckless exploits, the festive time he once had when he was a “desperate character,” and if he can only find a simple-hearted listener there is nothing he loves better than to give himself airs and boast with befitting dignity, describing his feats, though he is careful not to betray the pleasure this gives him. “See the sort of man I was,” he seems to say.
And with what subtlety this pose is maintained, how lazily casual the story sometimes is! What studied nonchalance is apparent in the tone, in every word! Where do such people pick it up?
Once in those early days I spent a long evening lying idle and depressed on the plank bed and listened to such a story, and in my inexperience took the storyteller to be a colossal, hideous criminal of an incredible strength of will, while I was inclined to take Petrov lightly. The subject of the narrative was how the speaker, Luka Kuzmitch, for no motive but his own amusement had laid out a major. This Luka Kuzmitch was the little, thin, sharp-nosed young convict in our room, a Little Russian by birth, whom I have mentioned already. He was really a Great Russian, but had been born in the south; I believe he was a house-serf. There was really something pert and aggressive about him, “though the bird is small its claw is sharp.” But convicts instinctively see through a man. They had very little respect for him, or as the convicts say, “little respect to him.” He was fearfully vain. He was sitting that evening on the platform bed, sewing a shirt. Sewing undergarments was his trade. Beside him was sitting a convict called Kobylin, a tall, stalwart lad, stupid and dull-witted but good-natured and friendly, who slept next to him on the bed. As they were neighbours, Lutchka frequently quarrelled with him and generally treated him superciliously, ironically and despotically, of which Kobylin in his simplicity was not fully conscious. He was knitting a woollen stocking listening indifferently to Lutchka. The latter was telling his story rather loudly and distinctly. He wanted everyone to hear, though he tried to pretend that he was telling no one but Kobylin.
“Well, brother, they sent me from our parts,” he began, sticking in his needle, “to Tch⸺v for being a tramp.”
“When was that, long ago?” asked Kobylin.
“It will be a year ago when the peas come in. Well, when we came to K. they put me in prison there for a little time. In prison with me there were a dozen fellows, all Little Russians, tall, healthy, and as strong as bulls. But they were such quiet chaps; the food was bad; the major did as he liked with them. I hadn’t been there two days before I saw they were a cowardly lot. ‘Why do you knock under to a fool like that?’ says I.
“ ‘You go and talk to him yourself!’ they said, and they fairly laughed at me. I didn’t say anything. One of those Little Russians was particularly funny, lads,” he added suddenly, abandoning Kobylin and addressing the company generally. “He used to tell us how he was tried and what he said at the court, and kept crying as he told us; he had a wife and children left behind, he told us. And he was a big, stout, grey-headed old fellow. ‘I says to him: nay!’ he told us. ‘And he, the devil’s son, kept on writing and writing. “Well,” says I to myself, “may you choke. I’d be pleased to see it.” And he kept on writing and writing and at last he’d written something and it was my ruin!’ Give me some thread, Vassya, the damned stuff is rotten.”
“It’s from the market,” said Vassya, giving him some thread.
“Ours in the tailoring shop is better. The other day we sent our veteran for some and I don’t know what wretched woman he buys it from,”
