little fellow who scraped the violin, and whom the convicts, during their festivities, used to hire to play for them. He stopped in the middle of the hall, silently examining his companions one after another.. No one breathed a word. When he saw me with my companions, he looked at us in his malicious, jeering way, and smiled horribly with the air of a man pleased with a good joke that had just occurred to him. He tottered over to our table.
‘Might I ask,’ he said, ‘where you get the money which enables you to drink tea?’
I exchanged a look with my neighbour. I realized that the best thing for us was to be silent, and not to answer. The least contradiction would have thrown Gazin in a passion.
‘You must have money,’ he continued, ‘you must have a good deal of money to drink tea; but, tell me, are you sent to hard labour to drink tea; I say, did you come here for that purpose? Please answer, I should like to know.’
Seeing that we were resolved on silence and that we had determined not to pay any attention to him, he ran towards us, livid and trembling with rage. A couple of yards away, he caught sight of a heavy box which ordinarily contained loaves for issue at dinner and supper, and held enough bread for the meal of half the prisoners. At this moment, however, it was empty. Gazin seized it with both hands and brandished it above our heads. Although murder, or attempted murder, was a source of endless trouble for the convicts-examinations, counter-examinations, and inquiries without end would be the natural consequence-and though quarrels were generally cut short when they did not lead to such serious results, yet everyone remained silent and waited.
Not one word in our favour, not one cry against Gazin. The hatred felt for all who were of gentle birth was so great that everyone was evidently pleased to see us in danger. But a fortunate incident cut short this scene which must otherwise have a tragic ending. Gazin was about to let fly the enormous box, which he was turning and twisting above his head, when a convict ran in from the barracks and cried out:
‘Gazin, they’ve stolen your vodka!’
The terrible brigand let fall the box with a frightful oath, and ran out of the kitchen.
‘Well, God has saved them,’ said the prisoners among themselves, repeating the words several times.
I never knew whether his vodka had been stolen, or whether it was only a stratagem invented to save us.
That same evening, before the barracks were locked up but when it was already dark, I walked to the side of the palisade. A heavy feeling of sadness weighed upon my soul. During the whole period of my imprisonment I never felt so miserable as on that evening, though the first day is always the hardest, whether at hard labour or confined to the prison. One thought in particular had left me no respite since my deportation-a question insoluble then and insoluble now. I reflected on the inequality of the punishments inflicted for the same crimes. Often, indeed, one crime cannot be compared even approximately with another. Two murderers kill a man under circumstances which in each case are minutely examined and weighed. They each receive the same punishment; and yet by what an abyss are their two actions separated! One has committed a murder for a trifle-for an onion. He has killed a passing yokel on the high-road and found on him no more than an onion.
‘Well, I was sent to hard labour for killing a peasant who had nothing but an onion!’
‘Well, you’re a fool! An onion is worth a kopeck. If you’d killed a hundred peasants you would have had a hundred kopecks, or one rouble.’ The foregoing is a prison joke.
Another criminal has killed a debauchee who was oppressing or dishonouring his wife, his sister, or his daughter.
A third, a vagabond half dead with hunger and pursued by a whole band of police, was defending his liberty, his life. He is to be regarded as on an equal footing with the brigand who assassinates children for amusement, for the pleasure of feeling their warm blood flow over his hands, of seeing them shudder in a last birdlike palpitation beneath the knife which tears their flesh!
They will all alike be sent to hard labour, though the sentence will perhaps not be for the same number of years. Degrees of punishment, however, are not very numerous, whereas different kinds of crime may be reckoned by thousands. There are as many crimes as there are characters.
Let us admit that it is impossible to get rid of this first inequality of punishment, that the problem is insoluble and, in the sphere of penal law, like trying to square the circle. Let all that be admitted; but even if this inequality cannot be avoided, there is another thing to be thought of-the consequences of the punishment. Here is a man who is wasting away like a candle; there is another, on the contrary, who had no idea before going into exile that there could be such a gay, such an idle life, where he would find a circle of such agreeable friends. Individuals of this latter class are to be found in every prison.
Now take a man who is sensitive, cultured, and of delicate conscience. What he feels kills him more surely than the material punishment. The judgment which he himself pronounces on his crime is more pitiless than that of the most severe tribunal, the most Draconian law. He lives side by side with another convict, who has not once during all his time in prison reflected on the murder he is expiating. He may even consider himself innocent. Are there not, also, poor devils who commit crimes in order to be sent to hard labour, and thus to escape from a freedom which is much more painful than confinement? So-and-so has led a miserable life; he has never, perhaps, been able to satisfy his hunger. He is worked to death in order to enrich his master. In prison his work will be less severe, less crushing. He will eat as much as he wants, better than he could ever have hoped to eat had he remained free. On holidays he will have meat, and fine people will give him alms, and his evening’s work will bring him in some money. And then again, is prison society to be counted for nothing? The convicts are clever, wide-awake people, who are up to everything. The new arrival can scarcely conceal the admiration he feels for his companions in labour. He has seen nothing like it before, and he will consider himself in the best company possible.
Is it possible that men so differently situated can feel in an equal degree the punishment inflicted? But why think about questions that are insoluble? The drum beats, and we must return to barracks.
CHAPTER V
FIRST IMPRESSIONS (continued)
We were inside once more. The doors of the barracks were locked, each with a special padlock, and the prisoners remained shut up until next morning.
The roll was checked by a noncommissioned officer accompanied by two soldiers. When an officer happened to be present, the convicts were drawn up in the courtyard, but generally speaking they were identified in the buildings. As the soldiers often made mistakes, they went out and came back in order to count us again and again, until their reckoning was satisfactory; then the barracks were closed. Each one housed about thirty prisoners, and we were very closely packed on our camp bedsteads. As it was too early to go to sleep, the convicts occupied themselves with work.
Besides the old soldier (of whom I have spoken) who slept in our dormitory and represented the prison authority, there was in our barrack another veteran who wore a good-conduct badge. It happened not infrequently, however, that the good-conduct men themselves committed offences for which they were sentenced to be whipped. They then lost their rank, and were immediately replaced by comrades whose behaviour was considered satisfactory.
Our good-conduct man was none other than Akim Akimitch. To my great astonishment, he was very hard on the prisoners, but they only retaliated
