CHAPTER XXIV

SOME DETAILS OF THE PRISON’S HISTORY—THE “TOM-CAT”—THE “SANHEDRIN’S ROOM”—MY FIRST SIBERIAN SPRING

In conversation with those who had been imprisoned at Kara for some time one often heard the expressions: “That was before the May days,” or, “That happened after the 11th of May.” This mode of reckoning time had become current among us; everybody knew the story of the “May days,” which had been an epoch in the prison life of Kara, just as the “February days” had been a turning-point in French history. All that lay behind the “May days” was a sort of golden age, and after them came a time of storm and stress, years of gloom and misery. I will briefly narrate the story of these events.

The Kara prison for political offenders dates from the year 1880. Before that time “politicals” were not confined in a special gaol, but in one among a great number of such prisons in this penal district, where along the River Kara are many gold-washing settlements, the private property of the Tsar—or “property of His Majesty’s Cabinet,” as it is officially termed. The “politicals,” like the ordinary prisoners, had to wash gold for the Lord of All the Russias; but the work was not hard, and they rather enjoyed it. It was at any rate pleasanter and more wholesome to work for a few hours in the fresh air than to vegetate in prison. At that time the “politicals” enjoyed 234the same privileges as the ordinary convicts; e.g. they had better rations than were subsequently given them, they might correspond with their relations, and at the expiration of their appointed sentences they were allowed to settle in the “free colony” outside the prison. The “politicals” were not dissatisfied with this state of things; but in December, 1880, the then Minister of the Interior, Count Loris Melikov, ordered that they should no longer be allowed in the penal colony. Shortly after this was made known one of the prisoners, a graduate of the Petersburg University, named Semyanovsky, took his own life, leaving a letter to his father, in which he declared that the idea of being permanently shut up in prison had driven him to commit suicide.

This cruel decree came at a time when the political movement was particularly strong, and we were believed to be on the eve of a great upheaval; news of revolutionary doings, though much delayed, reached the ears of the prisoners in distant Kara, and naturally made the yearning for liberty more fervent than ever. Some of those who still had a long term of punishment to suffer resolved on flight; but not till May, 1882, was it found possible to execute their plans, and the work at the mines to which they were daily led furnished them with the opportunity. It was arranged that two men were to escape each night; and by common consent the first to go was Myshkin,[89] a well-known revolutionist, who chose as his companion one of the most able of his comrades, a working-man named Nicholas Hrùstchov.[90] These two got away successfully, and to conceal their disappearance their comrades made dummies which they laid in their places on the bed-shelves when the roll was called. Galkin-Vrassky, the head of the 235Prisons Department, was just at that time visiting the prisons of Kara, accompanied by the Governor, Iliashèvitch; but nothing was discovered, though the fugitives were already well on their eastern journey, nearing the shore of the Pacific. After a few days a second couple escaped in the same manner, and as successfully, and then a third pair. But as the last man of a fourth pair was making off, the sentry fired and alarmed the watch; the shot missed, but the absence of eight prisoners was discovered. That was on May 11th, 1882; Galkin-Vrassky and Iliashèvitch were still in Kara, and the presence of their chiefs fired the local authorities to special exertions in following up the fugitives; six were soon captured,[91] only the first two remaining at large.

Reprisals were at once taken against the other political prisoners; some were conveyed in small parties to different prisons, and treated with terrible severity on the way; the Kara prison was rebuilt, the large common rooms being each converted into three cells so small that one could scarcely turn round in them; while within a special enclosure a building was erected with narrow cells for solitary confinement, wherein some of the revolutionists were incarcerated. All books and other possessions were taken from the “politicals”; they were allowed no food except that provided by the State; and were subjected to so many hardships and privations that they unanimously resolved to put an end to their lives by refusing to eat; and only when they were at death’s door were some concessions made by the authorities.

Myshkin and Hrùstchov were for some time lucky in evading detection. They got as far as Vladivostock, and were in the act of seeking safety on board a foreign vessel when they were recognised as the long-sought fugitives, and captured. All sacrifices had been vain, and the 236prisoners of the mighty Tsar were once more secured in the Kara prison, which had meanwhile undergone further changes. The “politicals” were separated from the ordinary convicts, and the male and female divisions of the political prison placed under the control of the gendarmerie. Koros, a staff officer of gendarmes, was sent from Petersburg and installed as commandant; and a number of inferior officers of gendarmerie were made warders. The whole system was at the same time completely altered; the workshops were removed, and the prisoners forced to remain idle; they were not allowed to leave the precincts of the gaol, and correspondence with their friends was forbidden. Moreover, as has been said elsewhere, thirteen of their number were despatched to the Fortress of Peter and Paul and thence to Schlüsselburg, where now (1902) only one of them survives.

During the four years that had elapsed since the “May days” there had been four changes of commandant. One of these gentlemen had been superseded and sent to Yakutsk for appropriating to his own private uses one thousand roubles of money sent to the prisoners. Each change of commandant meant some modification of arrangements, and thus by degrees various small improvements were made, among others the breaking down of the partition walls in the rooms; while, in consequence of an appeal made by a prisoner’s influential relations, the Loris Melikov order was finally annulled, and “politicals” were once more allowed to reside in the penal colony when their proportion of years in prison was past. The legal regulations concerning the latter privilege were as follows: in the fulfilment of all hard-labour (or “katorga”) sentences the first one or two years—according to the length of the sentence—are called “probation time”; the remaining years are called “time of alleviation,” and in them every ten months count as a year. In this way, for example, my thirteen years and four months became eleven years and five months; and being sentenced on 237October 12th, 1884, I should finish my term in February, 1896. The entire “probation time” and two or three years of the “time of alleviation” must be spent in prison; but after that the law provided that the prisoner should be allowed to reside in the “colony,” under police supervision, instead of within the prison walls. Such partially freed prisoners might take up their abode in some house assigned to them, or built by themselves; but they were subject to the rules and regulations laid down for the convicts residing there, ordinary and political alike. It was a great matter to be no longer cooped up day and night in a common room of the prison; the “politicals”—people of culture and refinement—appreciated this particularly, and the withdrawal of the privilege had been a terrible deprivation. The greater, therefore, was the rejoicing when, two years after the “May days,” the new commandant, Captain Burlei, who had succeeded the thief Manayev, informed the captives in the political prison of Kara that some time previously a resolution of the senate had rescinded the adverse decree. The dishonest Manayev had suppressed the document proclaiming this, that he might the more easily continue to conceal his malpractices. Captain Burlei immediately proposed to the governor of the district that steps should be taken forthwith for the release from prison and internment in the “colony” of all those who had become entitled to that right. Before this could be arranged, however, the humane commandant was replaced by Nikolin, who would only allow the new rules to come into force under certain restrictions. The senate had made their decision; the law was there, and must be complied with; but by “administrative methods” he continued to limit its operations.

Captain Nikolin was a malicious, small-minded man, always on the look-out for ways of annoying the prisoners; and now, on the pretence that he had not a strong enough force of gendarmes to supervise the “colony,” he asked that instead of releasing all who were entitled to the 238privilege, only fifteen persons at a time should be set free. His excuse was groundless, for under the circumstances the same force of gendarmes could have equally well controlled the greater or smaller number of “colonists”; but of course the wish of the commandant was acceded to, and it thus came about that those who should have obtained the right of living outside the prison had often to wait years until there was a vacancy, and even then there might be a dozen candidates for it, from among whom Nikolin arbitrarily selected a recipient of the favour. Of course this curtailment of their rights earned Nikolin the ardent dislike of the prisoners; and his conduct was such as continually to aggravate that sentiment anew.

I had an opportunity of seeing this man soon after being placed under his charge. He often came into the prison—into the corridor, that is, for he never entered the rooms. He might have been nearly fifty-five, rather big, with an imposing “corporation”; his broad round face, cunning little eyes, and bristling moustache, gave him the look of a fat, spiteful old tom-cat, and he was always designated by that nickname. The expression of his eyes was particularly catlike; he looked as if just ready to pounce on a victim and stick his claws into it. He always spoke in a low voice, this “tom-cat”; but he chattered unceasingly, and kept smacking his lips all the time, his expression being always peevish and discontented. When he visited the prison he generally remained for some time standing by our stàrosta, who would be busy beside his big chest; and Nikolin would talk away, quite regardless whether his conversation were agreeable to the listener or not. During these endless monologues he would brag and boast in the most inflated way. Could we have accepted his own account of his exploits, he would by this time have been at least a general. He had begun his career during the sixties under Mouravièv, the oppressor of Vilna, and he would recount the inestimable services he had rendered at that epoch. Yet he was still only a 239captain! Possibly an excess of zeal had spoiled his prospects; at any rate, he used to relate the following story of what had happened to him in Kara. He had once addressed a communication to the governor of the province, asking this highly important question: “When the floor of a room was being scrubbed, and the prisoners were consequently turned out into the corridor, should the warder take them into another room or not?”

“Imagine!” the “tom-cat” would cry. “The answer I received was this: ‘Arrange the matter for yourself according to Paragraph 13 of the instructions.’” Now the instructions only contained twelve paragraphs, but the irony of the rejoinder never struck Nikolin, and he continued to fuss on every occasion over any sort of trifle. He seemed, too, to think that his position as commandant of the political prisoners did not give him enough scope for grumbling, but poked his nose into everything that went on in the district of Kara. Once, indeed, he did actually succeed in discovering a series of thefts from the coffers of the State. There was a certain Major Pohùlov, governor of the ordinary convicts’ prison (with whom Mr. Kennan stayed during his visit to Kara). One fine day a storehouse under his charge, supposed to contain some thousands of poods of grain for the prisoners’ use, was burnt down. Now grain stored in great heaps does not burn away, but simply gets roasted; yet on this occasion there was no trace of it to be found, the gallant major having had a little deal with the purveyor, and then, with the help of his subordinates, having arranged that the warehouse should be burnt down in the nick of time.

Probably this transaction would have remained in the dark, like many others of the kind, had not our “tom-cat” taken the matter up and by his denunciations forced the Government to appoint a commission of inquiry on which he himself served.

He then revealed the full range of his talents, and brought to the light of day a whole system of robbery and 240fraud. The “hospitable gentleman,” as Kennan described Major Pohùlov (and indeed so he was), had had more than one device for enriching himself at the State’s expense. For instance, hundreds of prisoners figured on his list who had long since either been released or had escaped, and for these “ghosts” he had regularly charged his books with clothing and food allowances, whilst he and the purveyor had fraternally shared the money between them. This man was dismissed from his office, but was never brought to justice, as he had influential friends who shielded him.

Although my comrades in the “nobles’ room” were most sympathetic companions to me, I had a great wish to be transferred to the room inhabited by my friend Stefanòvitch, and permission for this had to be asked of the “tom-cat.” He at first refused it, on the excuse that he must get the governor’s sanction; but I heard in a roundabout way that he pretended to fear lest if Stefanòvitch and I got together we might manage to escape. This was arrant nonsense, as since the gendarmes had had charge of the prison there had been no faintest possibility of escaping from it; but the “tom-cat” had to find some pretext or other for tormenting us. A few weeks later he finally gave his consent, and I became my friend’s “chum” in the “Sanhedrin room.”

The whole aspect of life in this apartment differed materially from that in the “nobles’ room.” A good many of the inmates were artisans, and some of the others had a turn for manual work, in consequence of which the room had quite the look of a workshop. The possession of tools was forbidden, but they had them notwithstanding, though nothing of the kind was ever to be seen when an inspection took place. These inspections, though minute, were “superficial,” as the gendarmerie expressed it; that is, we were never personally searched, so we simply put our tools in our pockets when the inspection began.

Some of our workmen were past masters in their craft. 241Hrùstchov, a hero of the “May days,” was one of these, and another proficient was the locksmith Bubnovsky. With scraps of iron, old nails, and such-like he made a tiny lathe that could go into his pocket. With this little lathe he fashioned all the parts of a clock, and, though he had never been a watchmaker, produced a most artistic timepiece, that later found place in a Siberian museum. Almost all kinds of handiwork were carried on in our workshop, many of them having been learned entirely from books. Patience and endurance—lessons taught by prison life—had fruitful results when applied to such ends; and the theoretical studies that were undertaken, one comrade learning from another, also profited by those qualities. Knowledge was eagerly sought after in this room, and the quondam students helped the working-men. Yatzèvitch and Zlatopòlsky came there every day to give instruction in mathematics and natural science; Fomitchov occupied the chair of Russian languages, and so on. On this account our room was sometimes called “the Academy.”

Among the workmen a certain Karl Ivanein interested me much. By birth a Finn, but thoroughly Russified, his passion was for the finer branches of literature, and in these he was very well read. He was an enthusiastic adherent of Tolstoi’s teaching, and any hostile criticism of that sage stung his proselyte to eager defence. His was a highly gifted but eccentric character: soon after I became acquainted with him he was released from prison and sent to live in the penal settlement, where in a very little while he committed suicide.

Fomin and Fomitchov were noted among the other students in our room for their determined industry. Fomin I had known in Switzerland, where he had lived for some time as a refugee. He had been an officer of infantry; was arrested for making propaganda among the soldiers, and imprisoned in Vilna, but escaped by the help of a comrade. He could not long endure to remain abroad, and returned to Russia, where he managed to conceal himself 242for a time, but was arrested in 1882 in Petersburg and condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude. While in Kara he occupied himself with the study of natural science, particularly mineralogy.

Of Fomitchov I had heard much, as a very active revolutionist, but had never met him before. The son of a poor sacristan, he had studied in Odessa, where in 1877 he was arrested, and charged before a court-martial with making propaganda among soldiers; but even under martial law it was found impossible to convict him, and he was set free amid the applause of the onlookers, who gave both him and his counsel a perfect ovation. Soon afterwards, however, he was again imprisoned, and was condemned together with Lisogùb, Tchubàrov, and others, his sentence being penal servitude for life. In consequence of his attempted escape while on the journey, which I have already mentioned,[92] he was chained to the wheelbarrow[93] for a year. He busied himself with historical studies, more especially in Russian history, and had read a great deal on that subject; but unfortunately our library was one-sided in this branch, and only provided him with voluminous and rather out-of-date works, such as those of Schlosser, Weber, Mommsen, Soloviev, and Kostomarov. It may have been partly owing to the bias of these guides, partly to some odd twist in his own mind, but anyhow our friend Fomitchov—a clever and extremely painstaking student, an excellent comrade, and a man of strong character generally—came to adopt most extraordinary views for a political prisoner. He was not only an ardent patriot and Russsophil; but also—which seemed especially incomprehensible—an extreme monarchist, and a passionate upholder of the Romanov dynasty! A political offender, a convict for life, yet a fanatic for 243Russian absolutism: a strange combination, truly! If a man holding such opinions had petitioned for pardon it would have seemed only logical; not one of us would have seen anything dishonourable in his taking such a step, but Fomitchov abstained from doing so. He persisted in the curious view that it was his duty to abide his fate and wear out his life in a Siberian prison, as expiation of his rebellion against the Tsar, of whose wise policy for the government of his subjects Fomitchov had now not the slightest doubt. It might have been confidently asserted that among all the courtiers and dignitaries surrounding him, Alexander III. had no more loyal and devoted adherent than this political convict in Kara prison. The most unjust and cruel ukase of the Tsar’s Government found in Fomitchov a defender who could always discover therein some salutary principle intended to promote the welfare of the people. That people he loved beyond everything, even to the sacrificing of his own life, if need were; and therefore was he compelled to be for ever attempting the theoretical reconciliation of governmental Tsarism with the people’s good. Any attack on the Tsar incensed him to such a degree that he would often break off all intercourse with anyone who made His Majesty the object of hostile comment. Many of us seriously doubted if the man could rightly be considered sane.

Naturally Fomitchov stood alone in this exaggeration of royalist enthusiasm, but as a Russophil he found many sympathisers. A certain number among us were firmly persuaded that Russian social and domestic conditions were far superior to those of Western Europe, and disputes about this supposed Russian perfection were endless; they were the occasion of many a wager, and not infrequently caused serious estrangements between friends, or—as our double-Dutch expressed it—“climatic disturbances.” This strange belief in the superiority of backward Russia was a ruling craze of the time in our country. The entire progressive press was Russophil in that sense; and the 244tendency had manifested itself even in Socialist literature, in the passionate insistence that, Russian conditions being perfectly different from those of any other country, the revolutionary struggle must proceed on essentially distinct lines. I must confess that I was often pained to hear men suffering for their convictions giving vent to opinions so strongly resembling the arguments of hardened reactionaries.

One of the most strenuous advocates of these views in our room was a man who—strange to say—bore the reputation of being among the ablest in the prison. Nicholas Posen had been a village school-teacher who had taken no specially active part in the revolutionary movement, but had chanced to participate in armed resistance to the gendarmerie at Ki?v, and had been brought to trial in consequence, together with Maria Kovalèvskaya and others. He had been condemned to fourteen years and ten months’ “katorga,” subsequently increased by another fourteen years, for an attempt to escape from prison in Irkutsk. He was well educated and intelligent, but he had no political convictions worth mentioning. He had a passion for argument, and would discuss anything and everything by the hour, always ready to prove any given proposition, and seizing any pretext for a debate—a philosophical problem, or any everyday trifle. Serious study was not his forte, and his everlasting chatter disturbed others at their work; hardly had his eyes opened in the morning before his tongue was set in motion, and it never rested all day long.

A favourite theme with him was speculation about the day’s food: “What do you think we shall have for supper to-night?” he would ask, buttonholing somebody; “I am sure they are making ‘everyone-likes-it.’” “Perhaps; but perhaps it is mince and groats,” his interlocutor might say, just to please him by falling in with his humour. Then Posen’s tongue would be loosened, and he would prove his important point beyond question, giving all his 245reasons; he would dilate on it for half an hour, and would wind up with, “Will you back your opinion?”

“All right, we’ll have something on it; what shall it be?”

“Three matches!” cries Posen; everyone laughs; and he himself seems thoroughly pleased with his joke. He had at bottom a vain and petty spirit, and showed later that he could come to any compromise with the authorities in order to satisfy his own small desires.

Deficiency and poverty of nourishment soon affected my health, although I had all my life hitherto been thoroughly robust. After a few months I felt a weakness in the legs, and could no longer hold myself upright; then black and blue patches made their appearance on the skin of my legs, my gums began to suppurate, and my teeth became loose. I betook myself to our medical adviser, Prybylyev.

“Hullo, my friend, you have got a beautiful attack of scurvy!” said he; “you’ve been quick about it.” He ordered me invalid diet, and I was given a daily cutlet with plenty of garlic. I was not the only one to suffer in this way from the insufficient feeding; next spring a number of us were victims to the same disease, and, strangely enough, it was always the strongest and healthiest who succumbed. Improved diet and the skill of our good Prybylyev soon tided me over the worst; after a while I could walk once more without crutches, my gums healed, and soon I could dispense with invalid food. For a long time, however, I felt the after-effects of my illness.

I have a keen recollection of my first spring in Kara. I was overcome by an indescribable yearning and longing that made the burden of the aimless, senseless life within prison walls lie like a leaden weight on my spirits, in face of the new life of nature springing up so freely all around. Even reading, almost the sole occupation I could invent for myself outside the daily work, was impossible. The 246letters danced before my eyes; no sense of what I had read remained in my mind; memory failed me; and my fancy alone worked untiringly. In any case mental exertion under the conditions of prison life has but little result in proportion to the time and energy expended; the physical state of the prisoner reacts on his mind, dulling his faculties and weakening his resolution. But in the spring-time, when every living thing revives and asserts itself in action, it is hardly possible to resist distraction from merely mental labour.

Our prison lay in the trough of a valley between ranges of hills, and from the yard these hills could be seen by us. There was very scanty vegetation on those Siberian heights; yet in spring they appeared to us like a distant Paradise that beckoned irresistibly. Close by we had only the well-trodden courtyard, where not even a blade of grass peeped forth, the black weather-stained wooden walls of the prison buildings, and the tall posts of the stockade; our eyes dwelt on the farther prospect, and we pictured to ourselves the delight of treading on soft turf under the shade of trees.

We petitioned our “tom-cat” for leave to plant a garden in the yard; there was space enough, the work would have been beneficial, and then we might have had vegetables for our table, the deficiency in which particular had been so detrimental to our health. The “tom-cat” roundly refused. “We should need spades,” he said, “and they might be used to dig a hole whereby to get away.” So, again, when one of us was sent some flower-seeds and sowed them in a wooden box, the box was taken away by Nikolin’s orders: the earth in it might have served to conceal some contraband article. Such needless tyrannies embittered us still more against the detested commandant. However peaceably we might otherwise have been inclined, our hatred of this man might well have blazed out at any opportunity; he himself probably guessed as much, for he became more and more mistrustful, at last never entering 247our prison. He felt that he had made enemies all round him, and sat lonely in his own house, or squabbled with his cook, afraid to show himself outside. It may be a matter of surprise that one of his many enemies did not find a way to put an end to him, that being a not unusual course of events in Kara; but finally he could endure such a life no longer, and applied to be transferred elsewhere. In the spring of 1887 his application was granted, and he departed, accompanied by the anathemas of the entire population of Kara.