CHAPTER IV

The Krutitski Barracks—A Policeman’s Story—The Officers.

THREE days after the Tsar came to Moscow, a police-officer called on me late in the evening—all these things are done in the dark, to spare the nerves of the public—bringing an order for me to pack up and start off with him.

“Where to?” I asked.

“You will see shortly,” he answered with equal wit and politeness. That was enough: I asked no more questions, but packed up my things and started.

We drove on and on for an hour and a half, passed St. Peter’s Monastery, and stopped at a massive stone gateway, before which two constables were pacing, armed with carbines. This building was the Krutitski Monastery, which had been converted into a police-barracks.

I was taken to a smallish office, where everyone was dressed in blue, officers and clerks alike. The orderly officer, wearing full uniform and a helmet, asked me to wait and even proposed that I should light my pipe which I was holding. Having written out an acknowledgement that a fresh prisoner had been received, and handed it tomy escort, he left the room and returned with another officer, who told me that my quarters were ready and asked me to go there. A constable carried a light, and we descended a staircase, passed through a small yard, and entered by a low door a long passage lighted by a single lantern. On both sides of the passage there were low doors; and the orderly officer opened one of these, which led into a tiny guard-room and thence into a room of moderate size, damp, cold, and smelling like a cellar. The officer who was escorting me now addressed me in French: he said that he wasdésolé d’être dans la nécessitéof rummaging my pockets, but that discipline and his duty required it. After this noble exordium he turned without more ado to the gaoler and winked in my direction; and the man instantly inserted into my pocket an incredibly large and hairy paw. I pointed out to the polite officer that this was quite unnecessary: I would empty out all my pockets myself, without any forcible measures being used. And I asked what I could possibly have on me after six weeks in prison.

“Oh, we know what they are capable of at police-stations,” said the polite officer, with an inimitable smile of superiority, and the orderly officer also smiled sarcastically; but they told the turnkey merely to look on while I emptied my pockets.

“Shake out any tobacco you have on the table,” said the polite officer.

I had in my tobacco-pouch a pencil and a penknife wrapped up in paper. I remembered about them at once, and, while talking to the officer, I fiddled with the pouch till the knife came out in my hand; then I gripped it behind the pouch, while boldly pouring out the tobaccoon the table. The turnkey gathered it together again. I had saved my knife and my pencil, and I had also paid out my polite friend for his contempt of my former gaolers.

This little incident put me in excellent humour, and I began cheerfully to survey my new possessions.

The monks’ cells, built 300 years ago, had sunk deep into the ground, and were now put to a secular use for political prisoners.

My room contained a bedstead without a mattress, a small table with a jug of water on it, and a chair; a thin tallow candle was burning in a large copper candlestick. The damp and cold struck into the marrow of my bones; the officer ordered the stove to be lighted, and then I was left alone. A turnkey promised to bring some straw; meanwhile I used my overcoat as a pillow, lay down on the bare bedstead, and lit a pipe. I very soon noticed that the ceiling was covered with black beetles. Not having seen a light for a long time, the black beetles hurried to the lighted patch in great excitement, jostling one another, dropping on the table, and then running wildly about along the edge of it.

I don’t like black beetles, nor uninvited guests in general. My neighbours seemed to me horribly repulsive, but there was nothing to be done: I could not begin by complaining of black beetles, and I suppressed my dislike of them. Besides, after a few days all the insects migrated to the next room, where the turnkey kept up a higher temperature; only an occasional specimen would look inon me, twitch his whiskers, and then hurry back to the warmth.

In spite of my entreaties, the turnkey insisted on closing the stove after he had lighted it. I soon felt uncomfortable and giddy, and I decided to get up and knock on the wall. I did get up, but I remember no more.

When I came to myself I was lying on the floor and my head was aching fiercely. A tall, grey-haired turnkey was standing over me with his arms folded, and watching me with a steady, expressionless stare, such as may be seen in the eyes of the dog watching the tortoise, in a well-known bronze group.

Seeing that I was conscious, he began: “Your Honour had a near shave of suffocation. But I put some pickled horse-radish to your nose, and now you can drink somekvass.”[71]When I had drunk, he lifted me up and laid me on my bed. I felt very faint, and the window, which was double, could not be opened. The turnkey went to the office to ask that I might go out into the court; but the orderly officer sent a message that he could not undertake the responsibility in the absence of the colonel and adjutant. I had to put up with the foul atmosphere.

71.A sort of beer.

But I became accustomed even to these quarters, and conjugated Italian verbs and read any books I could get. At first, the rules were fairly strict: when the bugle sounded for the last time at nine in the evening, a turnkey came in, blew out my candle, and locked me up for thenight. I had to sit in darkness till eight next morning. I was never a great sleeper, and the want of exercise made four hours’ sleep ample for me in prison; hence the want of a light was a serious deprivation. Besides this, a sentry at each end of the passage gave a loud prolonged cry of “All’s well-l-l-l!” every quarter of an hour.

After a few weeks, however, the colonel allowed me to have a light. My window was beneath the level of the court, so that the sentry could watch all my movements; and no blind or curtain to the window was allowed. He also stopped the sentries from calling out in the passage. Later, we were permitted to have ink and a fixed number of sheets of paper, on condition that none were torn up; and we were allowed to walk in the yard once in twenty-four hours, accompanied by a sentry and the officer of the day, while outside the yard there was a fence and a chain of sentries.

The life was monotonous and peaceful; military precision gave it a kind of mechanical regularity like the caesura in verse. In the morning I made coffee over the stove with the help of the turnkey; at ten the officer of the day made his appearance, bringing in with him several cubic feet of frost, and clattering with his sword; he wore cloak and helmet and gloves up to his elbows; at one the turnkey brought me a dirty napkin and a bowl of soup, which he held by the rim in such a way that his two thumbs were noticeably cleaner than the other fingers. The food was tolerable; but it must be remembered that we were charged tworoublesa day for it, which mounts up to a considerable sum for a poor man in the course of nine months. The father of one prisoner said frankly that he could not pay, whereupon he was told it would bestopped out of his salary; had he not been drawing Government pay, he would probably have been put in prison himself. There was also a Government allowance for our keep; but the quarter-masters put this in their pockets and stopped the mouths of the officers with orders for the theatres on first nights and benefits.

After sunset complete silence set in, only interrupted by the distant calls of the sentries, or the steps of a soldier crunching over the snow right in front of my window. I generally read till one, before I put out my candle. In my dreams I was free once more. Sometimes I woke up thinking: “What a horrid nightmare of prison and gaolers! How glad I am it’s not true!”—and suddenly a sword rattled in the passage, or the officer of the day came in with his lantern-bearer, or a sentry called out “Who goes there?” in his mechanical voice, or a bugle, close to the window, split the morning air with reveille.

When I was bored and not inclined to read, I talked to my gaolers, especially to the old fellow who had treated me for my fainting fit. The colonel, as a mark of favour, excused some of the old soldiers from parade and gave them the light work of guarding a prisoner; they were in charge of a corporal—a spy and a scoundrel. Five or six of these veterans did all the work of the prison.

The old soldier I am speaking of was a simple creature, kind-hearted himself and grateful for any kindness that was shown him, and it is likely that not much had been shown him in the course of his life. He had served through the campaign of 1812 and his breast was covered with medals. His term of service had expired, but he stayed onas a volunteer, having no place to go to. “I wrote twice,” he used to say, “to my relations in the Government of Mogilev, but I got no answer; so I suppose that all my people are dead. I don’t care to go home, only to beg my bread in old age.” How barbarous is the system of military service in Russia, which detains a man for twenty years with the colours! But in every sphere of life we sacrifice the individual without mercy and without reward.

Old Philimonov professed to know German; he had learned it in winter quarters after the taking of Paris. In fact, he knew some German words, to which he attached Russian terminations with much ingenuity.

In his stories of the past there was a kind of artlessness which made me sad. I shall record one of them.

He served in Moldavia, in the Turkish campaign of 1805; and the commander of his company was the kindest of men, caring like a father for each soldier and always foremost in battle. “Our captain was in love with a Moldavian woman, and we saw that he was in bad spirits; the reason was that she was often visiting another officer. One day he sent for me and a friend of mine—a fine soldier he was and lost both legs in battle afterwards—and said to us that the woman had jilted him; and he asked if we were willing to help him and teach her a lesson. ‘Surely, Your Honour,’ said we; ‘we are at your service at any time.’ He thanked us and pointed out the house where the officer lived. Then he said, ‘Take your stand to-night on the bridge which she must cross to get to his house; catch hold of her quietly, and into the river with her!’ ‘Very good, Your Honour,’ said we. So I and my chum got holdof a sack and went to the bridge; there we sat, and near midnight the girl came running past. ‘What are you hurrying for?’ we asked. Then we gave her one over the head; not a sound did she make, bless her; we put her in the sack and threw it into the river. Next day our captain went to the other officer and said: ‘You must not be angry with the girl: we detained her; in fact, she is now at the bottom of the river. But I am quite prepared to take a little walk with you, with swords or pistols, as you prefer.’ Well, they fought, and our captain was badly wounded in the chest; he wasted away, poor fellow, and after three months gave back his soul to God.”

“But was the woman really drowned?” I asked.

“Oh, yes, Sir,” said the soldier.

I was horrified by the childlike indifference with which the old man told me this story. He appeared to guess my feelings or to give a thought for the first time to his victim; for he added, to reassure me and make it up with his own conscience:

“You know, Sir, she was only a benighted heathen, not like a Christian at all.”

It is the custom to serve out a glass of brandy to the gaolers on saints’ days and royal birthdays; and Philimonov was allowed to decline this ration till five or six were due to him, and then to draw it all at once. He marked on a tally the number of glasses he did not drink, and applied for the lot on one of the great festivals. He poured all the brandy into a soup-tureen, crumbled bread into it, and then supped it with a spoon. When this repast was over, he smoked a large pipe with a tiny mouthpiece;his tobacco, which he cut up himself, was strong beyond belief. As there was no seat in his room, he curled himself up on the narrow space of the window-sill; and there he smoked and sang a song about grass and flowers, pronouncing the words worse and worse as the liquor gained power over him. But what a constitution the man had! He was over sixty and had been twice wounded, and yet he could stand such a meal as I have described.

Before I end these Wouverman-Callot[72]sketches of barrack-life and this prison-gossip which only repeats the recollections of all captives like myself, I shall say something also of the officers.

72.Wouverman (1619-1668), a Dutch painter; Callot (1592-1635), a French painter; both painted outdoor life, soldiers, beggars, etc.

Most of them were not spies at all, but good enough people, who had drifted by chance into the constabulary. Young nobles, with little or no education, without fortune or any settled prospects, they had taken to this life, because they had nothing else to do. They performed their duties with military precision, but without a scrap of enthusiasm, as far as I could see; I must except the adjutant, indeed; but then that was just why hewasadjutant. When I got to know the officers, they granted me all the small indulgences that were in their power, and it would be a sin for me to complain of them.

One of the young officers told me a story of the year 1831, when he was sent to hunt down and arrest a Polish gentleman who was in hiding somewhere near his own estate. He was accused of having relations with agitators. The officer started on his mission, made enquiries, anddiscovered the Pole’s hiding place. He led his men there, surrounded the house, and entered it with two constables. The house was empty: they went through all the rooms and hunted about, but no one was to be seen; and yet some trifling signs proved that the house had been occupied not long before. Leaving his men below, the young officer went up to the attics a second time; after a careful search, he found a small door leading to a garret or secret chamber of some kind; the door was locked on the inside, but flew open at a kick. Behind it stood a tall and beautiful woman; she pointed without a word to a man who held in his arms a fainting girl of twelve. It was the Pole and his family. The officer was taken aback. The tall woman perceived this and said, “Can you be barbarous enough to destroy them?” The officer apologised: he urged the stock excuse, that a soldier is bound to implicit obedience; but at last, in despair, as he saw that his words had not the slightest effect, he ended by asking what he was to do. The woman looked haughtily at him, pointed to the door, and said, “Go down at once and say that there is no one here.” “I swear I cannot explain it,” the officer said, “but down I went and ordered the sergeant to collect the party. Two hours later we were beating every bush on another estate, while our man was slipping across the frontier. Strange, what things women make one do!”

Nothing in the world can be more stupid and more unfair than to judge a whole class of men in the lump, merely by the name they bear and the predominating characteristics of their profession. A label is a terrible thing. JeanPaul Richter[73]says with perfect truth: “If a child tells a lie, make him afraid of doing wrong and tell him that he has told a lie, but don’t call him a liar. If you define him as a liar, you break down his confidence in his own character.” We are told that a man is a murderer, and we instantly imagine a hidden dagger, a savage expression, and dark designs, as if murder were the regular occupation, the trade, of anyone who has once in his life without design killed a man. A spy, or a man who makes money by the profligacy of others, cannot be honest; but it is possible to be an officer of police and yet to retain some manly worth, just as a tender and womanly heart and even delicacy of feeling may constantly be found in the victims of what is called “social incontinence.”

73.The German humorist (1763-1825).

I have an aversion for people who, because they are too stupid or will not take the trouble, never get beyond a mere label, who are brought up short by a single bad action or a false position, either chastely shutting their eyes to it or pushing it roughly from them. People who act thus are generally either bloodless and self-satisfied theorists, repulsive in their purity, or mean, low natures who have not yet had the chance or the necessity to display themselves in their true colours; they are by nature at home in the mire, into which others have fallen by misfortune.

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