The House of the Dead

peasant lived and declaring that he had pride, and who had drunk tea with me. He was a man of forty, with an extraordinary thick lower lip and a large fleshy nose covered with pimples. He was holding a balalaika and carelessly twanging the strings. A diminutive convict with a very large head was following him about as though he were on a string. I had scarcely seen him before, and indeed no one ever noticed him. He was a queer fellow, mistrustful, always silent and serious; he used to work in the sewing-room and evidently tried to live a life apart, and to avoid having anything to do with the rest. Now, being drunk, he followed Varlamov about like a shadow. He followed him about in great excitement, waving his arms in the air, bringing his fist down on the wall and on the bed, and almost shedding tears. Varlamov seemed to be paying no attention to him, as though he were not beside him. It is worth remarking that these men had had scarcely anything to do with one another before; they had nothing in common in their pursuits or their characters. They belonged to different divisions and lived in different wards. The little convict’s name was Bulkin.

Varlamov grinned on seeing me. I was sitting on my bed by the stove. He stood at a little distance facing me, pondered a moment, gave a lurch, and coming up to me with unsteady steps, he flung himself into a swaggering attitude and lightly touching the strings, chanted in measured tones with a faint tap of his boot:

Round face! fair face!
Like a tomtit in the meadow
Hear my darling’s voice!
When she wears a dress of satin
With some most becoming trimming,
Oh, she does look nice!

This song seemed the last straw for Bulkin; he gesticulated, and addressing the company in general he shouted:

“He keeps telling lies, lads, he keeps telling lies! Not a word of truth in it, it is all a lie!”

“Respects to old Alexandr Petrovitch!” said Varlamov. He peeped into my face with a sly laugh, and was on the point of kissing me. He was very drunk. The expression “old” So-and-so is used among the people all over Siberia even in addressing a lad of twenty. The word “old” suggests respect, veneration, something flattering, in fact.

“Well, Varlamov, how are you getting on!”

“Oh, I am jogging along. If one’s glad it’s Christmas, one gets drunk early; you must excuse me!” Varlamov talked in rather a drawl.

“That’s all lying, all lying again!” shouted Bulkin, thumping on the bed in a sort of despair. But Varlamov seemed determined to take no notice of him, and there was something very comic about it, because Bulkin had attached himself to Varlamov from early morning for no reason whatever, simply because Varlamov kept “lying,” as he somehow imagined. He followed him about like a shadow, found fault with every word he said, wrung his hands, banged them against the walls and the bed till they almost bled, and was distressed, evidently distressed, by the conviction that Varlamov “was lying.” If he had had any hair on his head, I believe he would have pulled it out in his mortification. It was as though he felt responsible for Varlamov’s conduct, as though all Varlamov’s failings were on his conscience. But what made it comic was that Varlamov never even looked at him.

“He keeps lying, nothing but lying and lying! There’s not a word of sense in all he says!” shouted Bulkin.

“But what’s that to you?” responded the convicts laughing.

“I beg to inform you, Alexandr Petrovitch, that I was very handsome and that the wenches were awfully fond of me⁠ ⁠…” Varlamov began suddenly, apropos of nothing.

“He’s lying! He’s lying again!” Bulkin broke in with a squeal. The convicts laughed.

“And didn’t I swell it among them! I’d a red shirt and velveteen breeches; I lay at my ease like that Count Bottle, that is, as drunk as a Swede; anything I liked in fact!”

“That’s a lie!” Bulkin protested stoutly.

“And in those days I had a stone house of two storeys that had been my father’s. In two years I got through the two storeys, I’d nothing but the gate left and no gate posts. Well, money is like pigeons that come and go.”

“That’s a lie,” Bulkin repeated more stoutly than ever.

“So the other day I sent my parents a tearful letter; I thought maybe they’d send me something. For I’ve been told I went against my parents. I was disrespectful to them! It’s seven years since I sent it to them.”

“And haven’t you had an answer?” I asked laughing.

“No, I haven’t,” he answered suddenly laughing too, bringing his nose nearer and nearer to my face. “And I’ve a sweetheart here, Alexandr Petrovitch⁠ ⁠…”

“Have you? A sweetheart?”

“Onufriev said the other day: ‘My girl may be pockmarked and plain, but look what a lot of clothes she’s got; and yours may be pretty, but she is a beggar and goes about with a sack on her back.’ ”

“And is it true?”

“It’s true she is a beggar!” he answered, and he went off into a noiseless laugh; there was laughter among the other convicts too. Everyone knew indeed that he had picked up with a beggar girl and had only given her ten kopecks in the course of six months.

“Well, what of it?” I asked, wanting to get rid of him at last.

He paused, looked at me feelingly and pronounced tenderly:

“Why, things being so, won’t you be kind enough to stand me a glass? I’ve been drinking tea all day, Alexandr Petrovitch,” he added with feeling, accepting the money I gave him, “I’ve been swilling tea till I am short of breath, and it’s gurgling in my belly like water in a bottle.”

When he was taking the money Bulkin’s mental agitation reached its utmost limits. He gesticulated like a man in despair, almost crying.

“Good people!” he shouted, addressing the whole ward in his frenzy. “Look at him! He keeps lying! Whatever he says,