The House of the Dead

space allotted to the convicts was too small. And not only were people literally sitting on others, especially in the back rows, but the beds too were filled up, as well as the spaces to right and left of the curtain, and there were even some ardent spectators who always went round behind the scenes, and looked at the performance from the other ward at the back. The crush in the first part of the ward was incredible, and might even be compared to the crush and crowding I had lately seen at the bathhouse. The door into the passage was open and the passage where the temperature was 20° below zero was also thronged with people. Petrov and I were at once allowed to go to the front, almost up to the benches, where we could see much better than from the back. They looked upon me as to some extent a theatregoer, a connoisseur, who had frequented very different performances from this; they had seen Baklushin consulting me all this time and treating me with respect; so on this occasion I had the honour of a front place. The convicts were no doubt extremely vain and frivolous, but it was all on the surface. The convicts could laugh at me, seeing that I was a poor hand at their work. Almazov could look with contempt upon us “gentlemen” and pride himself on knowing how to burn alabaster. But, mixed with their persecution and ridicule, there was another element we had once been gentlemen; we belonged to the same class as their former masters, of whom they could have no pleasant memories. But now at the theatricals they made way for me. They recognized that in this I was a better critic, that I had seen and knew more than they. Even those who liked me least were (I know for a fact) anxious now for my approval of their theatricals, and without the slightest servility they let me have the best place. I see that now, recalling my impressions at the time. It seemed to me at the time⁠—I remember⁠—that in their correct estimate of themselves there was no servility, but a sense of their own dignity. The highest and most striking characteristic of our people is just their sense of justice and their eagerness for it. There is no trace in the common people of the desire to be cock of the walk on all occasions and at all costs, whether they deserve to be or not. One has but to take off the outer superimposed husk and to look at the kernel more closely, more attentively and without prejudice, and some of us will see things in the people that we should never have expected. There is not much our wise men could teach them. On the contrary, I think it is the wise men who ought to learn from the people.

Before we started, Petrov told me naively that I should have a front place partly because I should subscribe more. There was no fixed price of admission: everyone gave what he could or what he wished. When the plate was taken round almost everyone put something in it, even if it were only a halfpenny. But if I were given a front place partly on account of money, on the supposition that I should give more than others, what a sense of their own dignity there was in that again! “You are richer than I am, so you can stand in front, and though we are all equal, you’ll give more; and so a spectator like you is more pleasing to the actors. You must have the first place for we are all here not thinking of the money, but showing our respect; so we ought to sort ourselves of our own accord.” How much fine and genuine pride there is in this! It is a respect not for money, but respect for oneself. As a rule there was not much respect for money, for wealth, in the prison, especially if one looks at convicts without distinction, as a gang, in the mass. I can’t remember one of them seriously demeaning himself for the sake of money. There were men who were always begging, who begged even of me. But this was rather mischief, roguery, than the real thing; there was too much humour and naivete in it. I don’t know whether I express myself so as to be understood. But I am forgetting the theatricals. To return.

Till the curtain was raised, the whole room was a strange and animated picture. To begin with, masses of spectators crowded, squeezed tightly, packed on all sides, waiting with patient and blissful faces for the performance to begin. In the back rows men were clambering on one another. Many of them had brought blocks of wood from the kitchen; fixing the thick block of wood against the wall, a man would climb on to it, leaning with both hands on the shoulders of someone in front of him, and would stand like that without changing his attitude for the whole two hours, perfectly satisfied with himself and his position. Others got their feet on the lower step of the stove and stayed so all the time, leaning on men in front of them. This was quite in the hindmost rows, next to the wall. At the sides, too, men were standing on the bed in dense masses above the musicians. This was a good place. Five people had clambered on to the stove itself, and lying on it, looked down from it. They must have been blissful. The windowsills on the opposite wall were also crowded with people who had come in late or failed to get a good place. Everyone behaved quietly and decorously. Everyone wished to show himself in the best light before the gentry and the officers. All faces expressed a simple-hearted expectation. Every face was red and bathed in sweat from the closeness and