The House of the Dead

amusing and inimitably comic. If the convicts did not positively invent them, each of them put something of his own into them. Almost every one of the actors improvised something, so that the following evenings the same parts acted by the same actors were somewhat different. The last pantomime of a fantastic character concluded with a ballet. It was a funeral. The Brahmin with numerous attendants repeated various spells over the coffin, but nothing was of use. At last the strains of the “Setting Sun” are heard, the corpse comes to life and all begin to dance with joy. The Brahmin dances with the resuscitated corpse and dances in a peculiar Brahminical fashion. And so the theatricals were over till the next evening. The convicts dispersed merry and satisfied; they praised the actors, they thanked the sergeant. There were no sounds of quarrelling. Everyone was unusually contented, even as it were happy, and fell asleep not as on other nights, but almost with a tranquil spirit and why, one wonders? And yet it is not a fancy of my imagination. It’s the truth, the reality. These poor people were only allowed to do as they liked, ever so little, to be merry like human beings, to spend one short hour not as though in prison⁠—and they were morally transformed, if only for a few minutes.⁠ ⁠…

Now it is the middle of the night. I start and wake up. The old man is still praying on the stove, and will pray there till dawn. Aley is sleeping quietly beside me. I remember that he was still laughing and talking to his brothers about the theatricals as he fell asleep, and unconsciously I look closer into his peaceful childlike face. Little by little, I recall everything: the previous day, the holidays, the whole of that month.⁠ ⁠… I lift up my head in terror and look round at my sleeping companions by the dim flickering light of the prison candle. I look at their poor faces, at their poor beds, at the hopeless poverty and destitution⁠—I gaze at it⁠—as though I wanted to convince myself that it is really true, and not the continuation of a hideous dream.

But it is true: I hear a moan, someone drops his arm heavily and there is the clank of chains. Another starts in his sleep and begins to speak, while the old man on the stove prays for all “good Christians,” and I hear the even cadence of his soft prolonged, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us.”

“After all, I am not here forever, only for a few years,” I think, and I lay my head on the pillow again.

Part II

I

The Hospital

Soon after the holidays I was taken ill and went into our military hospital. It stood apart, half a mile from the fortress. It was a long one-storey building painted yellow. In the summer when the buildings were done up, an immense quantity of yellow ochre was spent on it. Round the huge courtyard of the hospital were grouped the offices, the doctors’ houses and other buildings. The principal building consisted only of wards for the patients. There were a number of wards, but only two for the convicts, and these were always very crowded, especially in the summer, so that the beds had often to be moved close together. Our wards were full of all sorts of “unfortunate people.” Our convicts, soldiers of all sorts awaiting trial, men who had been sentenced and men who were awaiting sentence, and men who were on their way to other prisons, all came here. There were some, too, from the disciplinary battalion⁠—a strange institution to which soldiers who had been guilty of some offence or were not trustworthy were sent for reformation, and from which two or more years later they usually came out scoundrels such as are rarely to be met with. Convicts who were taken ill in our prison usually informed the sergeant of their condition in the morning. Their names were at once entered in the book and with this book the invalid was sent to the battalion infirmary under escort. There the doctor made a preliminary examination of all the invalids from the various military divisions in the fortress, and any who were found to be really ill were admitted to the hospital. My name was entered in the book, and between one and two, when all the prisoners had gone out to work after dinner, I went to the hospital. The sick convict usually took with him all the money he could collect, some bread⁠—for he could not expect to get rations at the hospital that day⁠—a tiny pipe and a pouch of tobacco with a flint for lighting it. The latter articles he kept carefully hidden in his boots. I entered the precincts of the hospital, feeling some curiosity about this novel aspect of our prison life.

It was a warm, dull, depressing day, one of those days when an institution such as a hospital assumes a peculiarly callous, dejected and sour appearance. I went with the escort into the waiting-room, where there were two copper baths. There were two patients with their escort in the room already, not convicts, but men awaiting their trial. A hospital assistant came in, scanned us indolently with an air of authority, and still more indolently went to inform the doctor on duty. The latter soon made his appearance. He examined us, treated us very kindly, and gave each of us a medical chart with our name on it. The further description of the illness, the medicines and diet prescribed, were left for the doctor who was in charge of the convict wards. I had heard before that the convicts were never tired of praising the doctors. “They are like fathers to us,” they said in answer to my inquiries when I was going to the hospital. Meanwhile we had changed our clothes. The clothes we