CHAPTER XIV

A NOT INCORRUPTIBLE INSPECTOR—BROKEN FETTERS—RESISTANCE TO THE SHAVING PROCESS—VISITORS IN THE PRISON

In this Moscow prison we “politicals” had frequent opportunities of intercourse, and we soon managed to get news of the outer world. This was partly through our discovery that one of the inspectors was accessible to bribes. This man—we will call him Smirnòv—was about five-and-twenty, his family an impoverished branch of the smaller rural nobility. His sister was the mistress of a personage of some importance, and he owed his situation as prison inspector to her influence. Reckless, daring, and up to all sorts of dodges, he was ready for any adventure, and would not even have recoiled from committing a crime if it had seemed likely to be profitable to him. Scarcely able to read and write, he had an almost superstitious reverence for anything like education, and that made him anxious to ingratiate himself with us “politicals.” He was doubly delighted at being useful to us: first, because it flattered his vanity, and secondly, because we were very willing to reward his services with coin of the realm. He had a special affection for me, and often came to my cell for a gossip about all sorts of things. Of his own accord he suggested that he might help me to escape; but I turned every plan over and over, and could see none likely of success.

“Just listen, though,” he said once; “we can work it out like this: I can disguise you as a lamplighter or a stove-cleaner, 124and take you out of the prison with me, and then we can go abroad together.”

This might indeed have been managed, but there was much to be said against it; above all, the feeling of solidarity with my comrades prevented me from wishing to escape alone. The other two, my neighbours, had severer sentences than mine to undergo, and I could not have borne to leave them behind. We should have needed a considerable sum of money, which I had not at command; and then, besides, I should have had this man on my hands for the rest of our lives. All this led me to decline his offer.

Meanwhile, my companions had a plan of their own for breaking through the wall and so getting free, and although they had kept their preparations carefully secret, Smirnòv got an inkling of them.

“Do you think I don’t know your comrades want to get out?” he said to me one day. “Only tell them to manage so that I don’t get into trouble. I shan’t betray them.”

I promised him he should not be let in for anything, and told my comrades; but they very soon saw their plan was not feasible, and gave it up. We had no reason to fear that this man would tell tales of us, he was too much in our hands; but on one occasion I forced him to give information to the authorities, as I will now relate.

It had come to our knowledge that the ordinary criminals in this prison managed to disembarrass themselves of their fetters, not only at night, but through the day, and that this was winked at by the officials. I therefore resolved to follow their example, and get rid of my chains, but openly, not in secret.

“Smirnòv,” I said, “bring me a hammer and a nail.”

“What do you want them for?”

“You shall see directly.”

He did as I told him; I stepped on to the iron landing, and in his presence broke the rivets of my fetters.

125“What are you doing?” cried Smirnòv. “I shall have to pay for that!”

“Not a bit. Go at once and tell the governor I have broken my fetters.”

“But I can’t go and denounce you!”

“Don’t be silly,” said I; “do as I say.”

He went, protesting and shaking his head, and soon after called me to go before the governor. I fastened up my chains with twine in place of the rivets, and followed him.

“What’s all this?” cried the old man in great excitement. “You’ve broken your fetters? You are trying to make your escape?”

And he raised his hands in horror at this shocking discovery.

“On the contrary,” replied I. “If I were in your place I should feel reassured about that, if a prisoner broke his chains openly.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said the governor; “this is a serious business.”

“If I were contemplating flight,” continued I, “I should not break my fetters in the presence of the inspector, but should carefully keep quiet about it. I merely wanted to get rid of a perfectly unnecessary inconvenience, that worries me day and night.”

“That’s all very well,” observed the governor, “but you can’t expect me to give you permission to take them off as you please in this fashion!”

“You needn’t give me permission,” I returned. “You need only behave as if you know nothing about the matter, and consider everything to be ‘in good order,’ as you say in your reports.”

“That’s a nice suggestion!” said the old governor, amused and half relenting. “But what do you suppose my superiors would think of it?”

“Unless you tell them, I don’t see that they will ever have cause to think about it,” I replied. “It will never 126occur to the Governor of Moscow to examine whether my chains are fastened with rivets or with string.”

“Then if an inspection is made you will be wearing your fetters?” he asked, laughing.

“Of course! You see, I’ve come to you in full dress,” and I pointed to my tied-up chains.

We parted quite amicably; and I took it that informal permission not to wear our fetters had been conceded. It was not so easy to get dispensation from having our heads shaved; yet that we also achieved. According to rule, half the head should have been shaved every month; and there was no getting out of this save by a downright refusal to submit. This we accordingly made; and the barber reported it to the governor, who sent for us to come to him singly.

“What do you want me to do now?” said the good-humoured old man to me.

“Simply to report to the Governor of Moscow that such and such prisoners refuse to let their heads be shaved, and declare that they will offer determined resistance if forced. We have nothing against you,” I continued, “but this is our only way of appealing publicly against barbarous and humiliating usage.”

Whether he transmitted our protest I do not know; but anyhow, we were not again asked to undergo this degrading process until the end of our stay in this prison.

Russian prison regulations provide that prisoners belonging to the different categories shall be treated differently: the “administrative exiles” less severely than those banished to Siberia after a regular trial; and the latter again somewhat better than those condemned to penal servitude. But by the end of a month or two we had so contrived that this gradation was no longer apparent. We hard-labour prisoners only differed from the other “politicals” in having to wear the convict dress, and in not being allowed—as they were—to see our ladies, 127who were imprisoned in their own special tower. These interviews were only permitted to them when those who wished to meet were related, married, or betrothed to each other. But this was soon arranged. Various couples had an understanding on the subject, and addressed simultaneous petitions to the Governor of Moscow, asking to be allowed interviews with each other, as they were betrothed. In most cases this was a purely fictitious engagement, as the staff very well knew, and was only designed to vary the monotony of prison life; but not seldom the pretence led to a veritable attachment, as may easily be imagined. These were mostly young people of from eighteen to eight-and-twenty, and the nature of their surroundings shed a romantic glamour over their intercourse. The young pair met in the office of the prison, a dreary apartment with grated windows; and every word was listened to by an official. Prison life lent a poetical and spiritualised expression to their features, and there was much to awaken mutual interest and compassion. Sometimes this affection remained purely platonic; but in some cases an actual wedding was the upshot. Of course, in the latter event the young couple received the hearty sympathy of all their comrades, who also had personal reasons for rejoicing. The ceremony always took place in the prison chapel, and was a great occasion which pleasantly varied our dull existence.

Prisoners were allowed at intervals to receive visitors from outside. These also must be near relations, and often other friends and acquaintances gave themselves out as betrothed to such and such a prisoner in order to be allowed entry. It occasionally happened in this way that an awkward situation came about, if a young man or a girl appeared to be betrothed to two or more different people; but the solution was generally a satisfactory one in the end.

These visits were received in the office to which we had first been introduced, but the room on these occasions 128took on a very different appearance. The old captain sat in his place busy with his ledgers. By the door stood the inspector in full uniform, with revolver and cartridge-bag at his waist and his long sabre at his side; and round the walls would be grouped the prisoners with their visitors. The dim light falling through the grated windows shone on many a characteristic scene. All classes and ages were represented—young and old, men, women, and even children. Here would be a doctor or lawyer accompanied by his wife talking to their brother, a banished student. There an old peasant-woman, who had made the long journey by the Volga from some distant province to bid good-bye to her favourite son, would tell him the village news or bitterly lament her difficulty in living now he had been taken from her. Close by, the scions of a noble race—Prince Volhònsky and his princess—would be chatting with Malyòvany, his uncle; or Senator Shtshulèpnikov would sermonise his young daughter for having allowed herself to be drawn into the revolutionary movement, whereby she had now to suffer the penalty of exile to Siberia. All around would be the babble of voices—condolences, arguments, gossip, even jokes. One woman would furtively wipe away a tear as she bowed a grief-stricken head; while another would break into uncontrollable sobbing, because the sight of some beloved face now pale and haggard from long confinement and anxiety had robbed her of self-command. As everywhere else throughout the world, laughter and weeping, hope and despair, went side by side; only here in prison emotion is more openly avowed, ceremony more easily dispensed with, and franker expression given to the feelings. Those who here sought out their friends or relatives speedily got acquainted with one another and with all the prisoners whom they were accustomed to see. Among the “politicals,” as Socialists, there are no distinctions of rank or privilege; and the prison atmosphere soon exercised its levelling influence on all, and bound together members of every class with 129the common tie of sorrow and sympathy. Once only was the rule broken, and the announcement of a visitor’s name and position fixed all eyes upon him.

A grey-headed man in the garb of the Russian lower middle-class—a long kaftan and broad girdle—had entered the room.

“Whom do you want?” asked the captain, looking up from his books.

“I should like to speak to a person whom you have here in the prison. Làzarev is his name,” replied the stranger.

“Have you a permit?”

“Certainly, certainly; here it is,” said the man in the kaftan, and held out the paper.

The captain settled his glasses and read. Suddenly up he jumped as if he had had a blow, and began to stammer out a thousand apologies. “Pray sit down, Count! I really did not recognise you!” And then to the inspector, “Hi, Ivànov!” he cried, “ tell them to send Làzarev. The Count wants to see him.”

The whole prison seemed waked up. Bells were rung, and people ran about calling out: “ Làzarev! Send Làzarev! Count Leo Tolstoi has come to see him!”

Yegor Làzarev, a peasant by birth, a very intelligent and well-educated man, was from Count Tolstoi’s district. He was to be sent to Eastern Siberia by administrative order for a term of three years, simply because he, being a lawyer, had defended his poorer neighbours of the village in various cases of exaction by officials.