I sat down in the place of the police superintendent and took up the first paper that was lying on the table, a document relating to the funeral of a serf of Prince Gagarin's and a medical certificate that he had died according to all the rules of science. I picked up another-it was a set of police regulations. I ran through it and found a paragraph which stated that 'Every arrested man has the right within three days after his arrest to know the reason for it or to be released.' I noted this paragraph for my own benefit.
An hour later I saw through the window our major domo bringing me a pillow, bedclothes, and a greatcoat. He asked the non-commissioned officer something, probably permission to come in to me; he was a grey-headed old man, to two or three of whose children I had stood godfather as a small boy. The noncommissioned officer gave him a rough and abrupt refusal; one of our coachmen was standing ncar; I shouted to them from the window. The non-commissioned officer fussed about and told them to take themselves off. The old man bowed to the waist to me and shed tears; the coachman, as he whipped up the horse,
Prison and Exile
1 35
took off his hat and wiped his eyes, the drozhki rattled away and my tears fell in streams. My heart was brimming over; these were the first and last tears I shed while I was in prison.
Towards morning the office began to fill up; the clerk arrived still drunk from the day before, a consumptive-looking individual with red hair, a look of brutal vice on his pimply face. He wore a very dirty, badly-cut, shiny, brick-red dress-coat. After him another extremely free-and-easy individual arrived, in a non-commissioned officer's greatcoat. He at once addressed me with the question:
'Were you taken at the theatre, sir, or what?'
'I was arrested at home.'
'Did Fedor Ivanovich himself arrest you?'
'Who's Fedor I vanovich?'
'Colonel Miller.'
'Yes.'
'I understand, sir.' He winked to the red-haired man who showed no interest whatever. He did not continue the conversation-he saw that I had been taken neither for disorderly conduct nor drunkenness, and so lost all interest in me; or perhaps was afraid to enter into conversation with a dangerous prisoner.
Not long afterwards various sleepy-looking police officials made their appearance and then came petitioners and litigants.
The keeper of a brothel brought a complaint against the owner of a beer-shop, that he had publicly abused her in his shop in such language as, being a woman, she could not bring herself to utter before the police. The shopkeeper swore that he had never used such language. The madam swore that he had uttered the words more than once and very loudly, and added that he had raised his hand against her and that, if she had not ducked, he would have laid her whole face open. The shopkeeper declared that, in the first place, she had not paid what she owed him, and, in the second, had insulted him in his o"vn shop and, what was more, threatened that he should be thrashed within an inch of his life by her followers.
The brothel-keeper, a tall, untidy woman with puffy eyes, screamed in a loud, piercing voice and was extremely garrulous.
The man made more use of mimicry and gesture than of words.
The police Solomon, instead of judging between them, cursed them both like a trooper.
'The dogs are too well fed, that's why they run mad,' he said ;
'they should sit quiet at home, the beasts, seeing we say nothing
M Y P A S T A N D T H O U G H T S
1 36
and leave them in peace. \\·hat an opinion they have of themselves! They quarrel and run at once to trouble the police. And you're a fine lady! as though it WPre the first time-what's one to call you if not a bad word, with the trade you follow?'
The shopkeeper shook his head and shrugged his shoulders to express his profound gratification. The police officer at once pounced upon him and said :
'V\.hat do you go barking from behind your counter for, you dog? Do you want to go to the lock-up? You're a foul-tongued brute! Raise your paw any more-do you want a taste of the birch, eh?'
For me this scene had all the charm of novelty and it remained imprinted on my memory for ever; it was the first case of patriarchal Russian justice I had seen.
The brothel-keeper and the police officpr continued shouting until the police superintrndent came in. \Vithout inquiring why these people \vere there or \vhat they ,..,·anted, he shouted in a still more savage voice:
'Get out, be off! This isn't a public bath or a pot-house! '
Having driven 'the scum' out h e turned to the police officer:
'You ought to be ashamed to allow such a disturbance! How many timPs I havp told you ? Respect for the place is being lost.
After this rvery sort of riff-raff will turn it into a perfect Sodom.
You nre too easy-going with these scoundrrls. \Vhat man is this?'
he n sked about me.
'A prisoner brought in by FPdor Ivanovich. sir. Here is the document.'
The suprrintendent rnn through the document, looked nt me, met with disa pproval thr direct and unflinching gaze which I fiXf'd upon him. prepared at the first word to give as good as I got. and said 'Excuse me.'
The affair of the brothel-keeper and the be<>r-shop man began again. She insistPrl on mnking a deposition on oath. A priest arrived. I believe the:· both made sworn statements; I did not see the end of it. I was tak<>n awav to tlw ohrrpolitsmcntcr's. I do not know why : no one said a word to me ; then I \vas brought back again to the pol ice station. wherP a room had bePn prepared for m!' unrl<>r the watch towPr. The non-commissioned officer observc>d that if I want<>d am·thing to c>at I must sPnd out to buy it, that mv governmPnt ration had not he<>n allottPd yet and that it would not hP for another two days or so; moreover, that it consisted of thrPP or four kopPcks of silver and that the bcttcrrlass priwrwrs did not claim it.
TherP was a dirty sofa standing by the wall; it \vas past
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1 3 7
midday: I felt fearfully tired, flung myself on the sofa and slept like the dead. When I woke up, all was quiet and serene in my heart. I had been \vorn out recently by uncertainty about Ogarev; now my turn too had come. The danger was no longer far off, but was all about me; the storm-cloud was overhead. This first persecution was to be our consecration.
I mprison1nent
A MAN soon becomes used to prison, if onlv he has some inner resources. One quickly becomes used to the peace and complete freedom in one's cage-no anxieties, no distractions.
At first, I was not allo,wcl any books; the superintendent assured me that it \Vas forbidden to get books from home. I asked him to buy me some. 'Something instructive, a grammar now, I might get, perhaps, but for anything else you must ask the general.' The suggestion that I should while away the time by reading a grammar was immensely funny, nevertheless I seized it with both hands, and asked the superintendent to buy me an Italian grammar and lexicon. I had two reel twenty-five rouble notes with me, and I gave him one ; he at once sent an officer for the books and gave him a letter to the obcrpolitsmeystcr in