# The House of the Dead/Part 1/Chapter 10

At last the holidays came. The convicts did hardly any work on Christmas Eve. Some went to the sewing-rooms and workshops; the others were sent to their different tasks, but for the most part, singly or in groups, came back to prison immediately afterwards and they all remained indoors after dinner. Indeed the majority had left the prison in the morning more on their own business than for the regulation work: some to arrange about bringing in and ordering vodka; others to see friends, male and female, or to collect any little sums ​owing to them for work done in the past. Baklushin and others who were taking part in the theatricals went to see certain acquaintances, principally among the officers’ servants, and to obtain necessary costumes. Some went about with an anxious and responsible air, simply because others looked responsible, and though many of them had no grounds for expecting money, they, too, looked as though they were reckoning on getting it. In short every one was looking forward to the next day in expectation of a change, of something unusual. In the evening the veterans in charge who had been marketing for the convicts brought in eatables of all sorts: beef, sucking-pigs, even geese. Many of the convicts, even the humblest and most careful who used to save up their farthings from one year’s end to another, felt obliged to be lavish for such an occasion and to celebrate befittingly the end of the fast. The next day was a real holiday, guaranteed to them by law and not to be taken from them. On that day the convict could not be set to work and there were only three such days in the year.
​Akim Akimitch too made great preparations for the holiday. He had no home memories, for he had grown up an orphan among strangers, and had faced the hardships of military service before he was sixteen; he had nothing very joyful to remember in his life, for he had always lived regularly and monotonously, afraid of stepping one hair’s-breath out of the prescribed path; he was not particularly religious either, for propriety seemed to have swallowed up in him all other human qualities and attributes, all passions and desires, bad and good alike. And so he was preparing for the festival without anxiety or excitement, untroubled by painful and quite useless reminiscences, but with a quiet, methodical propriety which was just sufficient for the fulfilment of his duties and of the ritual that has been prescribed once and for all. As a rule he did not care for much reflection. The inner meaning of things never troubled his mind, but rules that had once been laid down for him he followed with religious exactitude. If it had been made the rule to do exactly the opposite, he would have done that to-morrow with the same docility and scrupulousness. Once only in his life he had tried to act on his own judgment, and that had brought him to prison. The lesson had not been thrown away on him. And though destiny withheld from him for ever all understanding of how he had been to blame, he had deduced a solitary principle from his misadventure—never to use his own judgment again under any circumstances, for sense “was not his strong point,” as the convicts used to say. In his blind devotion to established ritual, he looked with a sort of anticipatory reverence even upon the festal sucking-pig, which he himself stuffed with kasha and roasted (for he knew how to cook), as though regarding it not as an ordinary pig which could be bought and roasted any day, but as a special, holiday pig. Perhaps he had been used from childhood to see a sucking-pig on the table at Christmas, and had deduced from it that a sucking-pig was indispensable on the occasion; and I am sure that if he had once missed tasting sucking-pig on Christmas Day he would for the rest of his life have felt a conscience-prick at having neglected his duty.
Until Christmas Day he remained in his old jacket and trousers, which were quite threadbare though neatly darned. It appeared now that he had been carefully keeping away in his box the new suit given to him four months ago, and had refrained from touching it with the delectable idea of putting it on for the first time on Christmas Day. And so he did. On Christmas ​Eve he got out his new suit, unfolded it, examined it, brushed it, blew on it and tried it on. The suit seemed a good fit; everything was as it should be, buttoning tightly to the collar; the high collar stood up as stiff as cardboard under his chin; at the waist it fitted closely, almost like a uniform. Akim Akimitch positively grinned with delight, and not without a certain swagger he turned before the tiny looking-glass, round which at some leisure moment he had pasted a border of gold paper. Only one hook on the collar seemed not quite in the right place. Noticing it Akim Akimitch made up his mind to alter it; he moved it, tried the coat on again and then it was perfectly right; then he folded it up as before and put it away in his box again, with his mind at rest. His head was satisfactorily shaven; but examining himself carefully in the looking-glass he noticed that his head did not seem perfectly smooth—there was a scarcely visible growth of hair and he went at once to “the major” to be properly shaven according to regulation. And although Akim Akimitch was not to be inspected next day, he was shaven simply for conscience’ sake, that he might leave no duty unperformed before Christmas. A reverence for epaulettes, buttons and details of uniform had from childhood been indelibly impressed upon his mind and upon his heart, as a duty that could not be questioned and as the highest form of the beautiful that could be attained by a decent man. After this, as the senior convict in the ward, he gave orders for hay to be brought in and carefully superintended the laying of it on the floor. The same thing was done in the other wards. I don’t know why, but hay was always laid on the floor at Christmas time. Then having finished his labours Akim Akimitch said his prayers, lay down on his bed and at once fell into a sweet sleep like a baby’s, to wake up as early as possible next morning. All the convicts did the same, however. In all the wards they went to bed much earlier than usual. Their usual evening pursuits were laid aside, there was no thought of cards. All was expectation of the coming day.
At last it came. Quite early, before daybreak, as soon as the morning drum had sounded, the wards were unlocked and the sergeant on duty who came in to count over the prisoners gave them Christmas greetings, and was greeted by them in the same way, with warmth and cordiality. After hastily saying their prayers Akim Akimitch and many of the others who had geese or sucking-pigs in the kitchen hurried off to see what was being ​done with them, how the roasting was getting on, where they had been put and so on. From the little prison windows blocked up with snow and ice, we could see through the darkness in both kitchens bright fires that had been kindled before daybreak, glowing in all the six ovens. Convicts were already flitting across the courtyard with their sheepskins properly put on or flung across their shoulders, all rushing to the kitchen. Some, though very few, had already been to the “publicans." They were the most impatient. On the whole, all behaved decorously, peaceably, and with an exceptional seemliness. One heard nothing of the usual swearing and quarrelling. Every one realized that it was a great day and a holy festival. Some went into other wards to greet special friends. One saw signs of something like friendship. I may mention in parenthesis that there was scarcely a trace of friendly feeling among the convicts—I don’t mean general friendliness, that was quite out of the question, I mean the personal affection of one convict for another. There was scarcely a trace of such a feeling among us, and it is a remarkable fact: it is so different in the world at large. All of us, as a rule, with very rare exceptions, were rough and cold in our behaviour to one another, and this was, as it were, the accepted attitude adopted once for all.
I, too, went out of the ward. It was just beginning to get light. The stars were growing dim and a faint frosty haze was rising. The smoke was puffing in clouds from the kitchen chimneys. Some of the convicts I came upon in the yard met me with ready and friendly Christmas greetings. I thanked them, and greeted them in the same way. Some of them had never said a word to me till that day.
At the kitchen door I was overtaken by a convict from the military division with his sheepskin thrown over his shoulders. He had caught sight of me in the middle of the yard and shouted after me, “Alexandr Petrovitch, Alexandr Petrovitch!” He was running towards the kitchen in a hurry. I stopped and waited for him. He was a young lad with a round face and a gentle expression, very taciturn with every one; he had not spoken a word to me or taken any notice of me since I entered the prison; I did not even know his name. He ran up to me out of breath and stood facing me, gazing at me with a blank but at the same time blissful smile.
​“Why, it’s Christmas,” he muttered, and realizing that he could say nothing more, he left me and rushed into the kitchen.
I may mention here that we had never had anything to do with one another and scarcely spoke from that time till I left the prison.
In the kitchen round the glowing ovens there was great crowding and bustling, quite a crush. Every one was looking after his property; the cooks were beginning to prepare the prison dinner which was earlier that day. No one had yet begun eating, though some of them wanted to; but they had a regard for decorum in the presence of the others. They were waiting for the priest, and the fast was only to be broken after his visit. Meanwhile, before it was fully daylight, we heard the corporal at the prison gate calling the cooks. He shouted almost every minute and went on for nearly two hours. The cooks were wanted to receive the offerings, which were brought into the prison from all parts of the town. An immense quantity of provisions was brought, such as rolls, cheesecakes, pastries, scones, pancakes and similar good things. I believe there was not a housewife of the middle or lower class in the town who did not send something of her baking by way of Christmas greeting to the “unfortunate” and captives and captives. There were rich offerings—large quantities of fancy bread made of the finest flour. There were very humble offerings too—such as a farthing roll and a couple of rye cakes with a smear of sour cream on them: these were the gifts of the poor to the poor, and all they had to give. All were accepted with equal gratitude without distinction of gifts and givers. The convicts took off their caps as they received them, bowed, gave their Christmas greetings and took the offerings into the kitchen. When the offerings were piled up in heaps, the senior convicts were sent for, and they divided all equally among the wards. There was no scolding or quarrelling; it was honestly and equitably done. The share that was brought to our ward was divided among us by Akim Akimitch with the help of another convict. They divided it with their own hands, and with their own hands gave each convict his share. There was not the slightest protest, not the slightest jealousy; all were satisfied; there could be no suspicion of an offering being concealed or unfairly divided.
​We began dinner. Akim Akimitch’s sucking-pig was superbly cooked. I don’t know how to explain it, but immediately after the major had gone, within five minutes of his departure, an extraordinary number of people were drunk, and yet only five minutes before they had all been almost sober. One suddenly saw flushed and beaming faces and balalaikas were brought out. The little Pole with a fiddle was already at the heels of a reveller who had engaged him for the whole day; he was scraping away merry jig tunes. The talk began to grow louder and more drunken. But they got through dinner without much disturbance. Every one had had enough. Many of the older and more sedate at once lay down to sleep. Akim Akimitch did the same, apparently feeling that on a great holiday one must sleep after dinner. The old dissenter from Starodubov had a brief nap and then clambered on the stove, opened his book and prayed almost uninterruptedly till the dead of night. It was painful to him to see the “shamefulness,” as he said, of the convicts’ carousing. All the Circassians settled themselves on the steps and gazed at the drunken crowd with curiosity and a certain disgust. I came across Nurra: “Bad, bad!” he said, shaking his head with pious indignation, “Ough, it’s bad! Allah will be angry!” Isay Fomitch lighted his candle with an obstinate and supercilious air and set to work, evidently wanting to show that the holiday meant nothing to him. Here and there, card parties were made up. The players were not afraid of the veterans, though they put men on the look-out for the sergeant, who for his part was anxious not to see anything. The officer on duty peeped into the prison three times during the day. But the drunken men were hidden and the cards were slipped away when he appeared, and he, too, seemed to have made up his mind not to notice minor offences. Drunkenness was looked on as a minor offence that day. Little by little, the convicts grew noisier. Quarrels began. Yet the majority were still sober and there were plenty to look after those who were not. But those who were drinking drank a vast amount. Gazin was triumphant. He swaggered up and down near his place on the bed, under which he had boldly stored away the vodka, hidden till that day under the snow behind the barracks, and he chuckled slyly as he looked at the customers coming to him. He was sober himself; he had not drunk a drop. He meant to carouse when the holidays were over, when he would have emptied the convicts’ pockets. There was singing in all the wards. But drunkenness was passing into stupefaction ​and the singing was on the verge of tears. Many of the prisoners walked to and fro with their balalaikas, their sheepskins over their shoulders, twanging the strings with a jaunty air. In the special division they even got up a chorus of eight voices. They sang capitally to the accompaniment of balalaikas and guitars. Few of the songs were genuine peasant songs. I only remember one and it was sung with spirit:
I, the young woman, Went at eve to the feast.
And I heard a variation of that song which I had never heard before. Several verses were added at the end:
I, the your young woman, Have tidied my house; The spoons are rubbed, The boards are scrubbed, The soup’s in the pot The peas are hot.
For the most part they sang what are called in Russia “prison” songs, all well-known ones. One of them, “In times gone by,” was a comic song, describing how a man had enjoyed himself in the past and lived like a gentleman at large, but now was shut up in prison. It described how he had “flavoured blancmange with champagne” in old days and now:
Cabbage and water they give me to eat And I gobble it up as though it were sweet.
A popular favourite was the hackneyed song:
As a boy I lived in freedom, Had my capital as well. But the boy soon lost his money, Straightway into bondage fell.
and so on. There were mournful songs too. One was a purely convict song, a familiar one too, I believe:
Now the dawn in heaven is gleaming, Heard is the awakening drum. Doors will open to the jailer, The recording clerk will come. We behind these walls are hidden, None can see us, none can hear. But the Lord of Heaven is with us. Even here we need not fear. . . .
​Another was even more depressing but sung to a fine tune and probably composed by a convict. The words were mawkish and somewhat illiterate. I remember a few lines of it:
Never more shall I behold The country of my birth. In suffering, guiltless, I’m condemned To pass my life on earth. The owl upon the roof will call And grief my heart will tear, His voice will echo in the woods, And I shall not be there.
This song was often sung amongst us, not in chorus, but as a solo. Some one would go out on to the steps, sit down, ponder a little with his cheek on his hand and begin singing it in a high falsetto. It made one’s heart ache to hear it. There were some good voices among us.
​Here were two convicts disputing which should treat the other. Evidently they had been wrangling for a long time and this was not their first quarrel. One in particular seemed to have an old grudge against the other. He was complaining and speaking thickly, was struggling to prove that the other had been unfair to him: some sheepskin coat had been sold, a sum of money had been made away with somehow, a year before at carnival. There was something else besides. . . . He was a tall muscular fellow of peaceable disposition and by no means a fool. When he was drunk he was disposed to make friends with anyone and to open his heart to him. He even swore at his opponent and got up a grievance against him in order to be reconciled and more friendly afterwards. The other, a short, thick-set, stubby man, with a round face, was a sharp and wily fellow. He had drunk more than his companion, perhaps, but was only slightly drunk. He was a man of character and was reputed to be well off, but it was for some reason to his interest just now not to irritate his expansive friend, and he led him up to the vodka dealer; while the friend kept repeating that he should and must treat him “if only you are an honest man.”
The “publican” with a shade of respect for the short man, and a shade of contempt for his expansive companion, because the latter was being treated and not drinking at his own expense, brought out some vodka and poured out a cupful.
“No, Styopka, you owe it me,” said the expansive friend, seeing he had gained his point, “for it’s what you owe me.”
“I am not going to waste my breath on you!” answered Styopka.
“No, Styopka, that’s a lie,” protested the other, taking the cup from the “publican,” “for you owe me money, you’ve no conscience! Why, your very eyes are not your own but borrowed. You are a scoundrel, Styopka, that’s what you are; that’s the only word for you!”
“What are you whining about, you’ve spilt your vodka. One stands you treat, so you might as well drink,” cried the publican to the expansive friend. “You can’t keep us standing here till to-morrow!”
“But I am going to drink it, what are you shouting about! A merry Christmas to you, Stepan Dorofeitch!” cup in hand he turned politely, and made a slight bow to Styopka whom half a minute before he had called a scoundrel. “Good health ​to you for a hundred years, not reckoning what you’ve lived already! He emptied his cup, cleared his throat and wiped his mouth. “I could carry a lot of vodka in my day, lads,” he observed with grave dignity, addressing the world in general and no one in particular, “but now it seems age is coming upon me. Thank you, Stepan Dorofeitch.”
“Not at all.”
“But I shall always tell you of it, Styopka, and besides your behaving like a regular scoundrel to me, I tell I tell you . . .”
“And I’ve something to tell you, you drunken lout,” Styopka broke in, losing all patience. “Listen and mark my words. Look here: we’ll halve the world between us—you take one half, and I’ll take the other. You go your way and don’t let me meet you again. I am sick of you.”
“Then you won’t pay me the money?”
“What money, you drunken fool?”
“Ah, in the next world you’ll be wanting to pay it, but I won’t take it. We work hard for our money, with sweat on our brows and blisters on our hands. You’ll suffer for my five kopecks in the other world.”
“Oh, go to the devil!”
“Don’t drive me, I am not in harness yet.”
“Go on, go on!”
“Scoundrel!”
“You jail-bird!”
And abuse followed again, more violent than before. Here two friends were sitting apart on the bed. One of them, a tall, thick-set, fleshy fellow, with a red face, who looked like a regular butcher was almost crying, for he was very much touched. The other was a frail-looking, thin, skinny little man with a long nose which always looked moist, and little piggy eyes which were fixed on the ground. He was a polished and cultivated individual, he had been a clerk and treated his friend a little superciliously, which the other secretly resented. They had been drinking together all day.
“He’s taken a liberty!” cried the fleshy friend, shaking the clerk’s head violently with his left arm which he had round him. By “taking a liberty” he meant that he had hit him. The stout one, who had been a sergeant, was secretly envious of his emaciated friend and so they were trying to outdo one another in the choiceness of their language.
“And I tell you that you are wrong too . . .” the clerk began ​dogmatically, resolutely refusing to look at his opponent and staring at the floor with a dignified air.
“He’s taken a liberty, do you hear!” the first man broke in, shaking his friend more violently than ever. “You are the only friend I have in the world, do you hear? And that’s why I tell you and no one else, he’s taken a liberty!”
“And I tell you again, such a feeble justification, my friend, is only a discredit to you,” said the clerk in a high-pitched, bland voice. “You’d better admit, my friend, that all this drunken business is due to your own incontinence.”
The stout convict staggered back a little, looked blankly with his drunken eyes at the self-satisfied clerk and suddenly and quite unexpectedly drove his huge fist with all his might into his friend’s little face. That was the end of a whole day’s friendship. His dear friend was sent flying senseless under the bed. . . .
A friend of mine from the special division, a clever good-humoured fellow of boundless good-nature and extraordinarily simple appearance, who was fond of a joke but quite without malice, came into our ward. This was the man who on my first day in prison had been at dinner in the kitchen, asking where the rich peasant lived and declaring that he had pride, and who had drunk tea with me. He was a man of forty, with an extraordinary thick lower lip and a large fleshy nose covered with pimples. He was holding a balalaika and carelessly twanging the strings. A diminutive convict with a very large head was following him about as though he were on a string. I had scarcely seen him before, and indeed no one ever noticed him. He was a queer fellow, mistrustful, always silent and serious; he used to work in the sewing-room and evidently tried to live a life apart, and to avoid having anything to do with the rest. Now, being drunk, he followed Varlamov about like a shadow. He followed him about in great excitement, waving his arms in the air, bringing his fist down on the wall and on the bed, and almost shedding tears. Varlamov seemed to be paying no attention to him, as though he were not beside him. It is worth remarking that these men had had scarcely anything to do with one another before; they had nothing in common in their pursuits or their characters. They belonged to different divisions and lived in different wards. The little convict’s name was Bulkin.
Varlamov grinned on seeing me. I was sitting on my bed by the stove. He stood at a little distance facing me, pondered ​a moment, gave a lurch, and coming up to me with unsteady steps, he flung himself into a swaggering attitude and lightly touching the strings, chanted in measured tones with a faint tap of his boot:
Round face! fair face! Like a tomtit in the meadow
Hear my darling’s voice! When she wears a dress of satin
With some most becoming trimming, Oh, she does look nice!
This song seemed the last straw for Bulkin; he gesticulated, and addressing the company in general he shouted:
“He keeps telling lies, lads, he keeps telling lies! Not a word of truth in it, it is all a lie!”
“Respects to old Alexandr Petrovitch!” said Varlamov. He peeped into my face with a sly laugh, and was on the point of kissing me. He was very drunk. The expression “old” So-and-so is used among the people all over Siberia even in addressing a lad of twenty. The word “old” suggests respect, veneration, something flattering, in fact.
“Well, Varlamov, how are you getting on!”
“Oh, I am jogging along. If one’s glad it’s Christmas, one gets drunk early; you must excuse me!” Varlamov talked in rather a drawl.
“That’s all lying, all lying again!” shouted Bulkin, thumping on the bed in a sort of despair. But Varlamov seemed determined to take no notice of him, and there was something very comic about it, because Bulkin had attached himself to Varlamov from early morning for no reason whatever, simply because Varlamov kept “lying,” as he somehow imagined. He followed him about like a shadow, found fault with every word he said, wrung his hands, banged them against the walls and the bed till they almost bled, and was distressed, evidently distressed, by the conviction that Varlamov “was lying.” If he had had any hair on his head, I believe he would have pulled it out in his mortification. It was as though he felt responsible for Varlamov’s conduct, as though all Varlamov’s failings were on his conscience. But what made it comic was that Varlamov never even looked at him.
​“But what’s that to you?” responded the convicts laughing.
“I beg to inform you, Alexandr Petrovitch, that I was very handsome and that the wenches were awfully fond of me . . .” Varlamov began suddenly, apropos of nothing.
“He’s lying! He’s lying again!” Bulkin broke in with a squeal. The convicts laughed.
“And didn’t I swell it among them! I’d a red shirt and velveteen breeches; I lay at my ease like that Count Bottle, that is, as drunk as a Swede; anything I liked in fact!”
“That’s a lie!” Bulkin protested stoutly.
“And in those days I had a stone house of two storeys that had been my father’s. In two years I got through the two storeys, I’d nothing but the gate left and no gate posts. Well, money is like pigeons that come and go.”
“That’s a lie,” Bulkin repeated more stoutly than ever.
“So the other day I sent my parents a tearful letter; I thought maybe they’d send me something. For I’ve been told I went against my parents. I was disrespectful to them! It’s seven years since I sent it to them.”
“And haven’t you had an answer?” I asked laughing.
“No, I haven’t,” he answered suddenly laughing too, bringing his nose nearer and nearer to my face. “And I’ve a sweetheart here, Alexandr Petrovitch . . .”
“Have you? A sweetheart?”
“Onufriev said the other day: ‘My girl may be pock-marked and plain, but look what a lot of clothes she’s got; and yours may be pretty, but she is a beggar and goes about with a sack on her back.’”
“And is it true?”
“It’s true she is a beggar!” he answered, and he went off into a noiseless laugh; there was laughter among the other convicts too. Every one knew indeed that he had picked up with a beggar girl and had only given her ten kopecks in the course of six months.
“Well, what of it?” I asked, wanting to get rid of him at last.
He paused, looked at me feelingly and pronounced tenderly:
​When he was taking the money Bulkin’s mental agitation reached its utmost limits. He gesticulated like a man in despair, almost crying.
“Good people!” he shouted, addressing the whole ward in his frenzy. “Look at him! He keeps lying! Whatever he says, it’s nothing but lies, lies and lies!”
“But what is it to you,” cried the convicts wondering at his fury, “you ridiculous fellow?”
“I won’t let him tell lies!” cried Bulkin with flashing eyes, bringing his fist down on the bed with all his might. “I don’t want him to tell lies!”
Every one laughed. Varlamov took the money, bowed to me and grimacing, hurried out of the ward, to the publican, of course. And then he seemed for the first time to become aware of Bulkin.
“Well, come along!” he said to him, stopping in the doorway, as though he were of some use to him. “You walking-stick!” he added as he contemptuously made way for the mortified Bulkin to pass out before him, and began twanging the balalaika again.
But why describe this Bedlam! The oppressive day came to an end at last. The convicts fell heavily asleep on the plank bed. They talked and muttered in their sleep that night even more than usual. Here and there they were still sitting over cards. The holiday, so long looked forward to, was over. To-morrow the daily round, to-morrow work again.