The hospital life at Omsk—Humanity of the prison doctors—Tender treatment for victims of the lash—Sympathy shown to one another by convicts—The prison bath—Different classes of criminals—The murderer Petrov—Sirotkin; his history—Luka Kuzmich, the murderer of six men—The “old believer” from Little Russia—Ali, the young Tartar—Two brigands—The Jew, Isaiah Fomich; the prison usurer—The festival of Christmas—Gifts of food and drink sent in from the town—Prison theatricals—Convicts’ pets—Tanning and skin dressing carried on by the convicts—Dostoyevski’s release.

The one bright spot in the ostrog was the hospital. It was no part, however, of the prison proper. The convicts when sick were lodged in a couple of wards in the military hospital, which stood outside the fortress at a distance of five or six hundred yards. It was a large building of one story, painted yellow, spacious and well managed. Dostoyevski bears witness to the humanity and good feeling of the prison doctors, who made no distinction between the convicts and those who had never come under the ban of the law. In Russia the common people alone vie with the doctors in showing compassion for prisoners, whom they never reproach with their misdeeds, satisfied that they are suffering sufficiently in working out the sentences imposed upon them. The convicts were grateful for the kindness shown them, and were in the habit of saying that the doctors were like fathers to them and that they could not praise them too highly. This was also the common attitude of the peasantry toward the doctors, who in Russia generally enjoy the affection and respect of the people, although the latter would often prefer to take the empirical remedies of some old witch than go into a hospital and be treated with regular medicine, being influenced by the fantastic stories currently reported of the horrors perpetrated in hospitals. These fears vanish when they have once made acquaintance with the doctors and their humane and compassionate methods of practice. Personal prejudices disappear with personal knowledge.

The prison doctors were careful and attentive to their patients, questioning them minutely about their ailments, diagnosing anxiously and prescribing the necessary remedies with judgment and much medical skill. They were quick to detect imposture and malingering, but were not too hard upon the pretended invalids, whom they could forgive for seeking the ease and comfort of the hospital with its warm lodging, its bed with a mattress and the more palatable food. They had a scientific name for feigned disease, which they styled febris catharalis, a formula quite understood, and an imaginary malady required a week’s treatment. But they drew the line at last, and refused to be further imposed upon. If any one seemed disposed to linger on in hospital, the doctor would say plainly, “Come, come, you have had your rest, you must go out now and take no more liberties.”

One case of persistent malingering must be quoted. It was of a class not unknown in western prisons. A convict long suffered from a seemingly incurable disease of the eyes for which no treatment availed, although plasters, blisters, and leeches were tried. This particular prisoner was under sentence to receive a thousand lashes, and he was eager to postpone the punishment as long as possible. The most desperate devices have been tried for this purpose, sometimes even a murderous attack upon an officer or comrade, which would entail a fresh trial and an additional penalty, but which would also delay the flogging. The man with the sore eyes had some secret method of aggravating the disease which was never discovered, but its use was eventually checked by another operation applied to the back of the patient’s neck. The skin was taken up into the form of a blister, into which a double incision was made, one on each side and a thick thread of cotton was passed through the wound. Every day at a certain hour the thread was pulled backward and forward so that the wound would suppurate and never heal. The torture of this was intolerable, and to escape the continual suffering the convict volunteered to leave the hospital. Almost immediately after he went out, his eyes became well and as soon as the neck was healed he underwent his corporal punishment.

It was a painful moment for the hospital when the victim of a severe flogging was brought in fresh from the lash. He was received with grave composure and a respect proportioned to the enormity of his offence and the amount of punishment it had entailed. Those who had suffered most cruelly were thought more of than the mere deserter guilty of a minor military crime. If the patient were too much injured to attend to himself, he received even more sympathy. The surgeons knew they were leaving him in kindly and experienced hands. The treatment of the poor back, all scored and mangled, was extremely simple: the constant application of a piece of linen steeped in cold water. A very delicate operation inflicting acute torture was the picking out from the lacerated wounds the scraps and fragments of the twigs when the flogging had been performed by rods. Yet the sufferers usually exhibited extraordinary stoicism. Dostoyevski says: “I have seen many convicts who had been whipped cruelly. I do not remember one who uttered a groan. Only after such an experience the countenance becomes pale and discomposed, the eyes glitter, the look wanders and the lips tremble so that the patient sometimes bites them till they bleed.”

Quoting further and speaking of one man just flogged, the same writer says: “He was only twenty years old. He had been a soldier and was rather a fine man, tall and well-made, with a bronzed skin. His back, uncovered down to the waist, had been seriously beaten and his body trembled with fever beneath the damp sheet applied to his bleeding sores. For the first half hour he walked up and down the room in agony. I looked in his face; he seemed to be thinking of nothing, his eyes had a strange expression at once wild and timid; they fixed themselves with difficulty upon surrounding objects. He stared at the hot tea I had before me steaming in its cup. I offered it to the poor creature who stood there shivering, with chattering teeth, and he drank it down at one gulp, without looking at me or making a sign, then put the cup down silently and resumed his walk. His pain was too intense for words or thanks. No one questioned him or spoke; the other prisoners attended to the changing of the cold compresses, thinking rightly that he would prefer that to outspoken compassion, and the sufferer seemed satisfied and grateful to be left severely alone.”

That the convicts, even the most criminal and degraded, were not quite heartless or insensible to the finer feelings, was to be seen in their demeanour when a sick comrade died in hospital. The passing away of one poor victim of consumption is told with infinite pathos and much painful realism. Toward the end he became almost unconscious, his sight was confused, he recognised no one and was evidently suffering acutely. His respiration was painful, deep and irregular; his breast rose and fell convulsively as he struggled for breath, and he cast off his bedding as an intolerable burden. When exposed, it was terrible to see his immensely long body—with fleshless arms and legs, and ribs as clearly marked as a skeleton’s—which was absolutely naked but for the cross pendent from his neck and his leg irons. As his last moment approached, a death-like stillness prevailed, no one spoke or only in whispers. The convicts stepped on tiptoe across the floor, gazing furtively at the dying man, who caught with trembling hand at the cross, which seemed to be suffocating him, and tried to tear it off; the rattling in his throat grew more and more pronounced, and at last he died.

The spectators behaved with impressive reverence. One convict closed the dead man’s eyes, crossing himself, and the rest imitated the action. The corporal on duty came in, removed his helmet and also crossed himself, as he looked intently at the naked, shrivelled corpse still loaded with irons, which fell to the ground with a sharp sound and rattled along it as the body was lifted from the bed and carried out. The spell was broken; every one spoke as usual, and the voice of the corporal was heard calling for the blacksmith to remove chains no longer needed as a restraint. The spirit had taken flight; no physical precaution could serve to prevent its escape.

It is hardly necessary to dilate upon the cruel and indefensible practice, still observed by some so-called civilised countries, of imposing fetters upon those whom the law has condemned to the loss of personal liberty. The poor excuse of their need for safe custody is always pleaded, and the best answer is that of the old English judge who suggested that gaolers build their prison walls higher when he forbade the use of irons. No such argument can be used with the Russian authorities, who would still maintain the necessity of irons as a means of preventing escape, although they have never availed, entirely, and they would urge as a secondary reason that their use implies a moral degradation no less than a physical burden. It is a well known fact that the determined convict can and does constantly rid himself of his chains in Russian prisons, by hammering out the rivets with a stone, or elongating the basils sufficiently to allow the ankles to be drawn through. But the retention of irons upon convicts when sick and suffering cannot be justified, viewed from any standpoint. When men are really ill and must still carry their chains unvaryingly in bed and in hospital, the cruelty is manifest. In health it is found that the limbs shrivel and waste away, but for those in the fangs of disease, such as scurvy, phthisis or fever, it is an added intolerable torment, altogether prejudicial, postponing or often preventing recovery. Yet the doctors themselves, kindly men, convinced of their evil effects, hesitate to recommend the removal of irons from their patients in the very worst stages of illness and, as we have just seen, death itself is the only relief that can come.

The horrible inconvenience caused by those inseparable companions is well illustrated by the difficulty in putting on or taking off clothing, a rare business, no doubt, for the convicts made few changes and slept fully clothed, but it must be done at the periodical visit to the public bath. The chains were fastened to a leather waistbelt by two straps, one for each leg, and they must be held up in this way, or walking would be impossible. Each end of the chain was attached to a ring loosely fitting the leg so that a finger must be inserted between the iron and the flesh; the straps were necessary to keep the ring in its place, or the skin would be chafed and broken the very first day. To remove the trousers or the shirt is quite an art and only slowly acquired.

We get a graphic description of the prison bath as taken in collective fashion by a hundred convicts at one time, all of them crowded into one small apartment some twelve feet square. Not a single scrap of space was unoccupied, they were huddled together on benches tier above tier, so that the feet of those above trampled on those below and the leg chains became inextricably entangled and numbers were trampled on or dragged about the floor. The bath itself was like a drunken orgy; a dense volume of steam filled the room and deluges of dirty hot water were dashed to and fro from the pailful carried by every bather. Everyone was naked save for the rattling chains to which the convicts howled a mad accompaniment. They were maddened by the excitement, the tropical heat, the smart of the blows self-administered or struck by the hired rubbers, for convicts were always to be found who for a kopeck or two were willing to lay strokes on the heated flesh of the employers with birch rods of twisted twigs. It must have been a hideous scene, a great mass of commingled humanity in a state of half intoxication, shouting and shrieking at the top of their voices. The steam grew thicker and thicker until all were soaked and saturated with it, and their bodies became scarlet in the intolerably burning and overheated atmosphere.

The ostrog at Omsk contained a number of widely differing types, embracing many classes of crime, the most heinous as well as venial offences. All classes and many nationalities of the widespread Russian Empire were represented; well-bred nobles, degraded from their rank and sent to herd with serfs and peasants, and “old believers” from little Russia, insurgent Poles, mutinous soldiers sentenced by court-martial for desertion and grave acts of insubordination, mountaineers from the Caucasus exiled for brigandage, and Mahometans from Daghestan who lay in wait for passing caravans and pillaged them and assassinated the merchant travellers. There were murderers in many varieties; Cain who killed slowly and deliberately with deep malice and forethought, and the slayer moved to murder by swiftly risen, passionate impulse in a sudden irresistible access of fury. Thieves of all sorts abounded; petty pilferers and robbers on a grand scale; the wandering tramps or brodyagi who had escaped from durance to range the woods and steal from all they met. There were also many smugglers, long trained and practised in the traffic, who clung with great attachment to the business and who were constantly engaged in the clandestine introduction of spirits into the prison.

The story of one murderer, Petrov, exhibits a curious and somewhat uncommon character. He had been a soldier and had suddenly revolted at the ill-usage of his colonel who struck him one day on parade. It was not the first time he had been beaten, for the personal chastisement of their men was by no means uncommon with Russian officers, but on this occasion Petrov would not tamely submit, and retaliated by stabbing the colonel to the heart. It was said of him in prison that when the spirit moved him, nothing would stop him; he was capable of anything, and he would kill a man without the smallest hesitation or without showing the slightest remorse. The evil temper in him was easily aroused and was then ungovernable. Once he was sentenced to be whipped for some minor offence, no small punishment certainly, and he resolved not to submit to it. He had been previously flogged more than once and had borne his punishment calmly and philosophically. But this time he considered that he was innocent and wrongfully sentenced. He meant to resist, even to go so far as to kill the governor, if necessary, sooner than yield. This major-governor was a much dreaded being, a tyrannical disciplinarian, with lynx-like eyes for the detection of any irregularity; he was commonly called by the convicts “the man with eight eyes.” His severe method had generally the effect of irritating his charges, naturally ill-tempered and irascible men.

Petrov made no secret of his fell purpose, and it was known throughout the prison that when called up for punishment he would make an end of the major. He had successfully concealed a sharp-pointed shoemaker’s awl, which he held ready in his hand as he was marched under escort to the place of execution. The prisoners, in breathless anticipation of what they might see, clung close to the stockade, peering through the interstices, for they believed the major’s last hour had come. But the major, quite ignorant of his impending doom, had suddenly decided not to witness the flogging, and drove home in his carriage leaving his lieutenant to superintend the punishment parade. “God has saved him,” ejaculated the convicts piously, and Petrov submitted to his ordeal without a murmur. His anger was against the major and it had disappeared when the object was removed.

On another occasion, he had quarrelled with a comrade over the possession of a worthless piece of rag. They disputed with great violence and a collision seemed inevitable. Suddenly Petrov turned pale, his lips trembled, growing blue and bloodless, his respiration became difficult, and slowly he approached his antagonist step by step—he always walked with naked feet—while a deathlike stillness around succeeded the noisy chatter of the other convicts in the yard. The man he threatened awaited him tremblingly and suddenly blanched and gave in by throwing the cloth of contention at his adversary, using the most horrible and insulting language toward him.

This Petrov was a man of contradictory traits. In person he was of short stature, agile and strongly built, with a pleasant face, a bold expression, white regular teeth and an agreeable voice. He seemed quite young, no more than thirty, although he was fully forty years of age. He always appeared absent-minded and had a habit of looking into the distance over and beyond near objects. An attentive listener, joining with animation in the talk, he would suddenly become silent, oppressed, as it were, with disturbing thoughts. He was deemed a most resolute character and inspired the utmost awe in every one, as capable of anything if the caprice seized him; ready to murder any one out of hand without hesitation, and never deterred by the dread of subsequent remorse. He generally showed tact and forbearance in his relations with others, spoke to them civilly and was not easily roused or annoyed.

Sirotkin was another type of ex-soldier who had found military discipline insufferable and was resolved to escape from it at any cost. All went wrong with him; every one was harsh and cruel and he was forever being punished, and sobbing as if broken-hearted in some remote corner. One dark night when on sentry duty he was so unutterably sad that he placed the muzzle of his piece to his breast and pressed the trigger with his big toe. The gun missed fire twice; then he paced his beat carrying his musket reversed. He was checked for this by the captain of the guard, whereupon he bayonetted his officer then and there. He received a long sentence and could never realise that he richly deserved it. He was an enigma to all; mild-mannered, with tranquil blue eyes, a clear complexion and a soft air, and seemingly quite incapable of a murderous crime. When addressed, he answered quickly and with deference, but otherwise spoke little and rarely laughed. There was an expression in his eyes as of a child of ten; he cared for nothing but ginger-bread cakes, on which he lavished the small sums he sometimes earned, although he was lazy and apathetic and had no trade.

Luka Kuzmich was a convict who had killed as many as six men in cold blood and was much given to glory in his misdeeds. Yet for all his bragging words he was despised by his comrades, who summed him up as a conceited swaggerer inspiring no real fear. He often told the story of a crime of which he was especially proud, the murder of a major in another prison, but it made no impression because of his vanity and self-sufficiency. The major was a bully, one of those who used the blasphemous formula, customary at times with common men promoted undeservedly to high office, and who cried to his charges, “I will teach you to behave yourselves—I am your Czar, your God!” Luka, after upbraiding his comrades for not resenting these pretensions, borrowed the “rascal,” the one sharp knife permitted to be kept in the kitchen, went up to the major, and stabbed him in the intestines. He gained great notoriety for this horrible deed, and a crowd assembled to witness the infliction of the five hundred lashes given him for the crime, but no one in the prison thought the more of him when he told the story, or believed him when he posed as a very terrible person.

In sharp but pleasing contrast to these miscreants were convicts who had undoubtedly broken the law, but from mistaken motives,—under pressure of religious dissent, or in obedience to and by the example of elders. One man belonged to the sect of “old believers,” dissenters in Little Russia from the orthodox state religion, and when a number of them had been converted at Starodub, this old man, Notey, bitterly resented the building of a new Greek church and joined with others to burn it down. This act of incendiarism was visited with a sentence of imprisonment which this well-to-do shopkeeper accepted courageously, convinced that he was “a sufferer for the true faith.” He bore his penalty as a martyrdom and was proud of it, firmly believing he had done well in destroying an opposition church. A peaceable, kindly old man of sixty years, he had a mild, good-natured face and clear limpid eyes which were surrounded with many little wrinkles. He was of a gay, light-hearted temperament, ready to crack jokes with his fellows, not with the coarse cynical laughter of other convicts, but with something of simple childish glee. He had quickly acquired the respect and good will of all the prisoners, who had such implicit confidence in him that he was the universal banker trusted to hold and conceal their little hoards of cash and to honestly account for all moneys deposited with him.

In spite of the firmness with which he endured his hard fate, he was tormented by profound and incurable grief. At night, or in the small hours, he was in the habit of leaving his bed and climbing up to the top of the great porcelain stove where he regularly performed his devotions, praying aloud with broken, agonised sobs. He might be heard repeating as he wept, “Lord, do not forsake me. Master, strengthen me! My poor little children, my dear little children, we shall never see each other again.” He would remain there in earnest supplication until dawn came and the prison was opened.

Another estimable creature was a young Tartar, Ali by name, one of a band of brigands from Daghestan. He had been drawn into evil practices by his elder brothers and sentenced for what was really their crime, but “extenuating circumstances” were admitted, and he received the minimum punishment. One day he had been ordered to take his yataghan, mount his horse and ride abroad with his brothers as they were bent upon plundering the caravan of a rich Armenian merchant, whom they slew, taking possession of his goods. They were captured, tried, flogged and sent to Siberia. Every one liked this lad—he was only twenty-two years old—on account of his gaiety and good temper. His frank, intelligent face was always calm and placid; there was a childish simplicity in his confident smile; his large and expressive black eyes were so full of friendliness and tender sympathy that it was a relief to look at him. His three brothers, the real cause of his misfortune, loved him with paternal affection. He was their chief consolation. Dull and sad as a rule, they always smiled when they spoke to him, as to a child, and their forbidding countenances lighted up. He did not dare address them first; he recognised their superiority as elders and treated them with great deference and respect. It was a strange fact that he could preserve his native honesty and remain firm and uncorrupted among such surroundings. Chaste as a young girl, everything that was foul, shameful or unjust filled him with indignation. He carefully avoided quarrels and yet he was no coward and could not be insulted with impunity.

At this time there were two Lesghians from the Caucasus, mountain brigands, one of whom was tall and thin, with a bad face. The other, by name Nourra, was universally popular. Of middle height and built like a Hercules, with fair hair, and violet eyes, he had exceedingly mild manners, although he had been constantly engaged as a rebel and his body bore many scars from old bayonet wounds. His conduct in prison was exemplary, and he punctiliously observed the rules. Thieving, cheating and drunkenness filled him with disgust; he evinced his indignation and turned away, but without quarrelling. Fervently pious, he said his prayers religiously and strictly observed all Mahometan fasts. He clung firmly to the hope that when his sentence ended he would be sent back to the Caucasus. Indeed, without this consolation he would certainly have died in prison.

There is a humourous side to every situation, and the dark, gloomy life in the ostrog was brightened at times by the comicalities of one prisoner, a Jew, Isaiah Fomich by name, who was a butt and laughing-stock for all. He was a murderer who had been publicly whipped, exposed on the pillory and branded for a crime of greed. The branding had left frightful scars, to remove which he had received a famous specific, but he was waiting until his release to use it, years ahead. “Otherwise, I shall not be able to marry,” he would say, “and I must absolutely get married.” His first appearance in the prison evoked general laughter. He looked like a poor, plucked fowl, gaunt and thin and with hardly an ounce of flesh on his bones. Already of uncertain age, small, feeble, cunning and at the same time stupid, but boastful, and a horrible coward, it was difficult to believe he could have borne a flogging. The life of the prison seemed to agree with him and it was believed he was quite pleased to be condemned, as it gave him a chance of making a good deal of money. He was a jeweller by trade and a good workman. There was no “free” jeweller in the town of Omsk, and he secured more orders than he could execute, for which he was always well paid. Being rich, he soon was able to purchase all he wanted. He fared sumptuously; he bought a samovar, a tea cup, and a mattress. With his spare cash he also soon became the prison usurer, and almost every convict in the prison was in his debt and paid him heavy interest on small loans.

His arrival was greeted with great interest. He was the only Jew in the prison, and everyone crowded round to stare at him when he was first brought in with his hair shaved on the right side of his head. He sat on his plank bed, clinging to his bag, not daring to raise his eyes or resent the ridicule heaped upon him. A young convict came up to him, bringing a ragged pair of old linen trousers, and asked what Fomich would advance on them. “A silver ruble? No, only seven kopecks (seven farthings),” said the Jew, “and three kopecks interest.” “By the year?” he was asked. “No, by the month,” he replied. And the bargain was struck after much contemptuous laughter, whereupon Fomich put the pledged rags carefully away in his bag.

They all laughed at him, but no one insulted him, and he was rather proud of being noticed, as he thought it added to his importance. He gave himself great airs; he would sing in a squeaking, falsetto voice some idiotic refrain to a ridiculous tune, and perform the most comical antics. On Saturday evening, the convicts would collect to see him celebrate his Sabbath and he was greatly flattered by the curiosity displayed. He prepared his table in one corner with a very dignified air, lighted two candles, clothed himself in his robes, put on the phylacteries and tied a little box on his forehead where it protruded like a horn. Then he read aloud, wept and tore his hair, and suddenly changed into a hymn of triumph delivered with a nasal tone. All this, as he readily explained, was to typify the lamentations at the loss of Jerusalem, changing into rejoicing at the return.

One day, when at his worship, the major came in and stood behind the Jew while he was wildly gesticulating without noticing the governor, who, after watching him for some time, burst out laughing and went off with the one exclamation, “idiot.” Afterward Fomich declared that he had not seen the major; that he was always in a state of ecstatic abstraction when saying his prayers. He was, or pretended to be, a very strict Jew, and liked people to admire his punctilious observance of the rule of idleness on his Saturday Sabbath; and was very proud of his visit to the synagogue under escort as a single worshipper, a privilege to which he was entitled by law. Fomich was at the height of his glory in the bath, where he treated himself to the services of several rubbers and sang loudly when the hubbub was highest and the steam most plentiful.

The festival of Christmas, so highly esteemed throughout Russia, was strictly observed also in the prison. The convicts were eager to show that they were doing the same as the rest of the world outside, and to feel that they were not altogether reprobates cast out by society. It was essentially a high day and holiday, when no work was enforced or undertaken, and when rejoicing, enjoyment and sensual gratification became, with permission, the order of the day. A complete change came over the prison on the eve of the great day. Almost all were busy preparing to keep Christmas in suitable fashion according to their own ideas. The chief of these was to revel in unaccustomed good living. The old soldiers, the guards who might come and go, brought in openly the supplies ordered from the town, suckling pigs, poultry and joints of meat; and the drink sellers, no less active, smuggled in their vodka secretly.

Every one was moving early, the drum beat was heard long before dawn and the convicts were well up and dressed when the officer of the day came in to muster the men and wish them a happy Christmas. This interchange of compliments was general even between convicts who had not spoken to each other before; those who had once quarrelled forgot their enmity in the desire for peace and good-will. A sort of universal friendship prevailed in harmony with the sentiment of the day. It was encouraged by the good feeling expressed from outside, for relays of gifts of food, great and small, began to arrive from the town to be distributed among the prisoners.

The kitchens were the chief centre of interest. Great fires were blazing, and the cooks were preparing the festive entertainment, under the eyes, or with the assistance of the convicts themselves. Every one supplemented the daily ration with choice morsels privately purchased out of hard-earned savings. But no one tasted food until the priest arrived with cross and holy water; a small table had been prepared for him with a holy image on it, and before it a lamp was burning. After he had conducted the service, the pre-Christmas fast ended, and the feast began by the permission of the commandant, who had visited the barrack formally and tasted the cabbage soup, but had made no remark about the additional delicacies provided and which were now brought in to be greedily devoured.

The scene presently degenerated into an orgy. Faces became flushed with drink and good cheer; the balalaiki, or banjos, were produced; the fiddler, paid by a convivial convict, played lively dance music. The conversation became more and more animated and more and more noisy, but the dinner ended without great disorder. Later, drunkenness was general; it was no offence that day, and even the officers, who made the regulation visits, paid no attention. The antics of the intoxicated were an amusing spectacle to most. But a few of the more orderly and right-thinking showed their disapproval. The “old believer” from Starodub climbed up to his favourite perch on top of the stove and fervently prayed for the rest of the day. The sight of these excesses was exceedingly painful to him. The Mahometan prisoners took no part in the revels; they looked on with much curiosity and manifest disgust. The youth Nourra, already mentioned, shook his head crying, “Aman, Aman. Alas! Alas! It is an offence to Allah!” The Jew, Isaiah Fomich, declined to join in a celebration commemorating an offence committed by his co-religionists, and to show his contempt for Christ, lighted a candle and went to work in a favourite corner.

As the day passed, reckless self-indulgence gradually increased, but the general drunkenness and debauchery began to lapse into wearisome depression. Men who had been convulsed with uproarious laughter became maudlin and dropped into some out of the way spot, weeping bitter tears; others, pale and sickly, tottered about, seeking quarrels with all whom they met. Old differences were revived; disputes soon developed into personal conflicts; frequently two of the men would come to blows as to which should stand treat to the other. The whole spectacle was insupportable, nauseating and repulsive. The great festival, which should have passed with so much delight, ended in dejection and disappointment. The convicts, drunken or sober, alike dropped down on their camp beds and slept heavily.

In some countries prisoners have been permitted to find relief in theatrical performances. It was so in the Spanish presidios, and here in the old Russian ostrog a dramatic entertainment, on a most ambitious scale, was a feature of the Christmas holidays. A convict company was organised very secretly; it was always uncertain whether the major would consent, and all was kept from his knowledge until the last moment. The rehearsals were quite private; the names of the plays were unknown, or how the costumes and scenery were to be obtained. The stage was created in a space cleared in the centre of the barrack, and could be put up and taken down in a quarter of an hour. The moving spirit was one Bakluchin, who had been a soldier in Riga, and had murdered his rival, a German, whom he had caught paying addresses to his fiancÉe and who was preferred by her. This Bakluchin, who was thirty years old, was of lofty stature, with a frank, determined countenance, but good-natured and generally popular. He had the comedian’s knack of changing his face in comic imitation of any passer-by, and convulsed all who saw him. As the projected performance took place, Bakluchin swelled with ill-concealed importance and boasted of the success he would achieve. He went about declaiming portions of his part and amusing everybody by anticipation.

Two popular pieces were chosen for performance, plays from an old book, preserved by memory in the traditions of the prison. Many of the “properties,” too, had been handed down, carefully concealed in secret places for years. One of them, the curtain, which was a work of art, was composed of numerous scraps of cloth sewed together, such as the linen of old shirts, bandages, and underwear; even pieces of strong paper were added to fill in empty spaces; and on the surface was painted in oil a landscape with trees and ponds of flowers. This curtain delighted the convicts and shared the first applause with the orchestra of eight instruments,—two violins, three banjos, two guitars and a tambourine. The musicians played well, and the tunes were all original and distinctive.

The audience, before the curtain rose, crowded and crushed into the narrow theatre, wild with suppressed excitement. Two benches were placed immediately in front of the stage, which was lighted with candle ends. These seats, with one or two chairs, were for the officers who might deign to be present,—the overseers, clerks, directors of works and engineers. Behind stood the convicts respectfully, row after row. Some were posted on the camp beds or had climbed up on the porcelain stove, and every face glowed with delight, a strange look of infinite contentment and unmixed pleasure shining on these scarred and branded countenances so generally dark and forbidding. Everyone was dressed in his best, his short sheepskin pelisse, in spite of the suffocating heat, and each face was damp with perspiration. Everyone was there: The Tartars and Circassians, who showed a passionate delight for the theatre; Young Ali, whose childish face beamed and whose laughter was contagious; the Jew, Isaiah Fomich, who was in an ecstasy from the rising of the curtain to its fall, and rejoiced at the chance of showing off, for when the plate was passed he ostentatiously contributed the imposing sum of ten kopecks, or twopence, halfpenny.

As the play proceeded, it was received with warm applause. Cries of approbation were heard in all parts of the house. The convicts nudged each other with loud whispers, calling attention to the jokes, laughing uproariously, smacking their lips and clacking their tongues, and toward the end the gaiety reached its climax. “Imagine the convict prison,” says Dostoyevski, “the chains of long years of captivity in close confinement, the bodily toil monotonous and unending, the accumulated, long protracted misery and despair, and the grim place of durance transformed on this occasion into one of light-hearted amusement where prisoners might forget their condition, dismiss the nightmare of crime and breathe freely and laugh aloud.”

A comedy in prison! The convicts were in costumes altogether different from the daily garb of shame, but with the inseparable chains always obstructing. One was in female attire, wearing an old worn-out muslin dress, with neck and arms bare and a pert calico cap on his half shaven head. Another represented a gentleman of fashion in a frock coat, round hat and cloak, but his chains rattled as he strutted across the stage; one was in the full-dress but faded uniform of an aide-de-camp. There were convicts in many characters, strange and varied: a nobleman, an innkeeper, demons, a Brahmin in flowing robes. Every one was delighted when the performance ended, and the convicts separated, quite pleased to have been taken away from themselves for a brief space, full of praise for the actors and of gratitude to their superiors, who had permitted the play to be given. It was a wise concession, for the convicts made a point of conducting themselves in the most exemplary fashion.

The prisoners in the ostrog were fond of live animals, and if permitted, would have filled the prison with domesticated pets. They had dogs, geese, a horse and even an eagle whom they vainly sought to tame. “Bull” was a good-sized black dog with white spots, intelligent eyes and a bushy tail. He lived in the prison enclosure, slept in the courtyard, ate the waste scraps from the kitchen and had little hold on the sympathy of the men, all of whom he regarded as masters and owners. He came to greet the working parties on their return from labour, wagging his tail and looking for the caresses which he seldom got. Dostoyevski, as he tells us, was one of the first to make friends with Bull by giving him a piece of bread and patting him on the back, which pleased him greatly. “That evening, not having seen me for the whole day,” says the author, “he ran up to me leaping and barking. Then he put his paws on my shoulders and looked me in the face. ‘Here is a friend sent to me by destiny,’ I said to myself, and during the first weeks, so full of pain, every time I returned to the barrack I hastened to fondle and make much of Bull.”

Another dog was called Snow. He was a luckless creature who had been driven over and injured in the spine by the wheels of a telyega, “country cart.” He looked like two dogs because of the curvature of his spine, and he was mangy, with bleared eyes and a hairless tail always drooping between his hind legs. Snow was abjectly submissive to all, both men and fellow-dogs. He never barked nor made overtures, but continually turned on his back to curry favour, and received the kick of every passer without a sign of resentment, except that if hurt he would often utter one low deprecatory yelp. When surprised with a caress wholly unexpected and unusual, he quivered and whined plaintively with delight. His fate was sad and brutal; he was torn to pieces by other dogs in the ditch of the fortress.

A third dog was Kultiapka, brought in as a puppy soon after he had been born in one of the prison workshops. Bull took him under his especial protection and “fathered” and played with him. He was always of abbreviated height but grew steadily in length and breadth, and was quaint in appearance. One ear hung constantly down while the other was always cocked up. He had a fine, fluffy, mouse-coloured coat which cost him his life. One of the convicts who made ladies’ shoes cast greedy eyes upon Kultiapka, and having felt his skin lured him into a corner, killed and flayed him. A little later the young wife of one of the officers appeared in a smart pair of velvet boots trimmed with mouse coloured fur.

Tanning and skin dressing was a trade much followed in the prison. Dogs which had been stolen by servants were brought in and sold. On one occasion a fine black dog of good breed was disposed of by a scamp of a footman for thirty kopecks. The poor beast must have anticipated what was in store for him, for he looked up at the convicts in a distressed, beseeching way, but could find no pity, and he was speedily hanged. The same fate overtook the prison goat, a beautiful white kid of whom every one was fond. The pretty creature was full of grace and was very playful, jumping on and off the kitchen table, wrestling with the convicts and always full of fun and spirits. He grew up into a fine, fat beast with magnificent horns, which it was proposed to gild and which were often decorated with flowers. It was the custom for the goat to march at the head of the convicts when returning from labour, and when the eyes of the choleric major fell upon it in the procession, he forthwith ordered it to be executed. The goat was killed and flayed; both carcass and skin were sold in the prison; the latter went to the leather dresser, the former, which fetched a ruble and fifty kopecks, was roasted and the flesh retailed among the convicts.

Other strange pets were a flock of geese, which somehow had been hatched within the enclosure, and as they grew up they attached themselves to the prisoners and would march out with them regularly to labour. When the drum beat and the parties assembled at the great gate, the geese came cackling, flapping their wings and hopping along. While the convicts worked, the geese pecked about close at hand until the time came for return, when they again joined the procession and marched with their friends solemnly back to the barracks, to the great amusement of the bystanders. The close attachment between the birds and their friends did not save the geese from having their necks twisted and being added to the dinner on a feast day.

The captive eagle did not take kindly to detention. It had been brought in wounded, with a broken wing and half dead. Nothing could domesticate or tame it. It gazed fiercely and fearlessly on the curious crowd and opened its beak as if determined to sell its life dearly. As soon as a chance came it hopped away on one leg, flapping its one uninjured wing, and hid in a far-off, inaccessible corner, from which it never emerged. The convicts often gathered to stare at it and would bait it with the dog Bull, who hesitated, in wholesome dread of the savage bird’s beak and claws. The eagle long refused food, and although he finally took meat and drank water left with him, he would consume nothing that was given him by hand or when any one’s eye was upon him. When no one was near, he would creep out of his corner and take a walk of a dozen steps, hopping and limping backward and forward with great regularity under the lee of the stockade. He resisted pugnaciously all overtures to friendship, and would suffer no one to pet him or pat him but pined away, lonely and irreconcilable, waiting only for death.

At last the convicts were moved to compassion for the caged bird, deprived of liberty like themselves. It was seriously discussed whether he ought not to be set free. So he was securely tied, taken out to the ramparts when the parties went to labour, and thrown out on the bare, barren steppe. The bird immediately hurried away, flapping his wounded wing and striving desperately to get out of sight of his captors. They looked after him enviously; they had given him the freedom they did not possess, a boon they hungered for unceasingly night and day, winter and summer, but especially when the sun shone bright and they could see the boundless plain stretching away in the blue distance beyond the river Irtysh and across the free Kirghiz Steppe.

Dostoyevski feelingly records his sensations when the day for his release at length arrived. The night before, as darkness fell, he went round the enclosure for the last time, revisiting every spot where he had suffered the bitter pangs of imprisonment, solitary and despairing,—the place where he had counted over and over again the thousands and thousands of days he had still to remain inside. The next morning, before the exodus for labour, he made the rounds to bid his comrades farewell; and many a coarse, horny hand was held out to him with hearty good-will. The generous souls gave him Godspeed, but others who were more envious turned their backs on him and would not reply to his kindly greetings. His last visit was to the blacksmith’s shop. He went without escort, and placed his feet on the anvil, each in turn; the rivets were struck out of the basils and he was freed from his chains.

“Liberty! New life, resurrection from the dead! Unspeakable moment!”