The House of the Dead quotes

In the winter we were locked up early; it was fully four hours before everyone was asleep. And before that—noise, uproar, laughter, swearing, the clank of chains, smoke and grime, shaven heads, branded faces, ragged clothes, everything defiled and degraded. What cannot man live through!

Man is a creature that can get accustomed to anything, and I think that is the best definition of him.

There were two hundred and fifty of us in the prison, and the number scarcely varied. Some came, others completed their sentence and went away, others died. And there were some of all sorts.

A noncommissioned officer with moustaches at last opened for me the door of this strange house in which I was to spend so many years, and to endure sensations of which I could never have formed the faintest idea if I had not experienced them.

I could never have imagined, for instance, how terrible and agonizing it would be, never once for a single minute to be alone for the ten years of my imprisonment.

At work to be always with, a guard, at home with two hundred fellow prisoners; not once, not once alone! Yet this was not the worst I had to get used to!

There were cobblers there, shoemakers, tailors, cabinetmakers, locksmiths, woodcarvers and gilders. There was one Jew, Isay Bumshtein, a jeweller and pawnbroker. They all worked and earned something. They got orders for work from the town.

Money is coined liberty, and so it is ten times dearer to the man who is deprived of freedom.

If money is jingling in his pocket, he is half consoled, even though he cannot spend it. But money can always and everywhere be spent, and, moreover, forbidden fruit is sweetest of all. Even vodka could be got in prison.

But money can always and everywhere be spent, and, moreover, forbidden fruit is sweetest of all. Even vodka could be got in prison. Pipes were strictly forbidden, but everyone smoked them. Money and tobacco saved them from scurvy and other diseases.

Work saved them from crime; without work the convicts would have devoured one another like spiders in a glass jar.

In spite of this, both work and money were forbidden. From time to time a sudden search was made at night and all forbidden articles were carried off, and however carefully money was hidden, it was sometimes found by the searchers.

The latter flew running after me. “There, poor man, take a farthing, for Christ’s sake!” she cried, overtaking me and thrusting the coin into my hand. I took her farthing, and the girl returned to her mother quite satisfied.

I treasured that farthing for a long time.

he will remain with his feelings, his thirst for revenge and life, his passions and the craving to satisfy them. At the same time I am convinced that there is no need to fear convicts.

A man does not so quickly or so easily fly at another with a knife.

In fact, if there may be danger, if there is sometimes trouble, the rarity of such instances shows how trifling the risk is.

The latter never reproach the convict with his crime, however terrible it may have been, and forgive him everything on account of the punishment he has endured and his general misery.

Significantly the peasants all over Russia speak of crime as a misfortune, and of criminals as the unfortunate.

It is a definition of deep import, and it is the more significant because it is unconscious, instinctive. The doctors are truly a refuge for the convicts in many cases, especially for those awaiting punishment, who are kept far more severely than the ordinary prisoners.

I may as well say at once that I consider Aley far from being an ordinary person, and I look back upon my meeting with him as one of the happiest meetings in my life,

There are natures so innately good, so richly endowed by God that the very idea of their ever deteriorating seems impossible.

One is always at ease about them. I am at ease about Aley to this day. Where is he now?

The kindest and friendliest of all was Akim Akimitch. And among the faces of other convicts that were sullen and full of hatred, I could not help noticing some kind and good-natured ones.

“There are bad people everywhere, and good ones among the bad,”

I hastened to console myself by reflecting: “and who knows? These people are perhaps by no means so much worse than the remainder who have remained outside the prison.”

and yet other people laughed at him, nagged at him on every occasion, and sometimes abused him violently—and he was on amiable and even friendly terms with them, and never took offence.

Yes, indeed, it is very hard to understand a man, even after long years!

That is why I could not see the prisoners at first as they really were, and as they seemed to me later.

What is more precious than money for the convict? Freedom or some sort of dream of freedom.

The prisoner is a great dreamer.

I shall have something to say of this later, but, while we are on the subject, would it be believed that I have known convicts sentenced for twenty years who, speaking to me, have quite calmly used such phrases as “you wait a bit, when, …

Moreover all this disorderliness has its special risk, so it all has a semblance of life, and at least a far-off semblance of freedom. And what will one not give for freedom?

What millionaire would not give all his millions for one breath of air if his neck were in the noose?

The prison authorities are sometimes surprised that after leading a quiet, exemplary life for some years, and even being made a foreman for his model behaviour, a convict with no apparent reason suddenly breaks out, as though he were possessed by a devil, plays pranks, …

There is life for him too, granted—prison life—but whatever the convict may be and whatever may be the term of his sentence, he is instinctively unable to accept his lot as something positive, final, as part of real life.

Every convict feels that he is, so to speak, not at home, but on a visit.

He looks at twenty years as though they were two, and is fully convinced that when he leaves prison at fifty-five he will be as full of life and energy as he is now at thirty-five.

But I don’t know all the details of this story; he never told it me. No doubt these were only outbursts when the man’s character showed itself fully all at once. But they were very rare in him. He really was sensible and even peaceable.

Passions were latent in him, and hot, violent passions, too; but the burning embers were always covered with a layer of ashes and smouldered quietly.

I never saw the faintest trace of vanity or boastfulness in him, as in others. He rarely quarrelled; on the other hand he was not particularly friendly with anyone, except perhaps with Sirotkin, and then only when the latter was of use to him.

This is an error, too. Everyone, whoever he may be and however downtrodden he may be, demands—though perhaps instinctively, perhaps unconsciously—respect for his dignity as a human being.

The convict knows himself that he is a convict, an outcast, and knows his place before his commanding officer; but by no branding, by no fetters will you make him forget that he is a human being.

And as he really is a human being he ought to be treated humanely. My God, yes! Humane treatment may humanize even one in whom the image of God has long been obscured. These “unfortunates” need even more humane treatment than others.

but by no branding, by no fetters will you make him forget that he is a human being. And as he really is a human being he ought to be treated humanely. My God, yes!

Humane treatment may humanize even one in whom the image of God has long been obscured.

These “unfortunates” need even more humane treatment than others. It is their salvation and their joy. I have met some good-hearted, high-minded officers. I have seen the influence they exerted on these degraded creatures.

“He is a natural,” Vassya summed up conclusively.

Though Lutchka had murdered six people no one was ever afraid of him in the prison, yet perhaps it was his cherished desire to be considered a terrible man.

“Well, I suppose he is.”

“Well, I don’t mind then. If the Lord God is there and there’s money, I shall be all right everywhere.”

“Bravo, Isay Fomitch, you are a fine chap, no mistake!” the convicts shouted round him, and, though Isay Fomitch saw they were laughing at him, he was not cast down.

Isay Fomitch for his part feels that at the moment he is superior to everyone and has outdone them all; he is triumphant, and in a shrill crazy voice screams out his tune “la-la-la-la-la,” which rises above all the other voices.

It occurred to me that if one day we should all be in hell together it would be very much like this place.

I could not help expressing this thought to Petrov; he merely looked round and said nothing.

“What is it?” I asked wondering, seeing that he was standing and gazing at me with open eyes, was smiling but not saying a word.

“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.

“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.

”

“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!”

Everyone 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.

One has but to take off the outer superimposed husk and to look at the kernel more closely, more attentively and without prejudice, and some of us will see things in the people that we should never have expected.

There is not much our wise men could teach them. On the contrary, I think it is the wise men who ought to learn from the people.

Before we started, Petrov told me naively that I should have a front place partly because I should subscribe more. There was no fixed price of admission: everyone gave what he could or what he wished.

Another starts in his sleep and begins to speak, while the old man on the stove prays for all “good Christians,” and I hear the even cadence of his soft prolonged, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon us.”

“After all, I am not here forever, only for a few years,” I think, and I lay my head on the pillow again.

Another necessary operation was the skilful extraction of splinters which were often left in the wounds from broken sticks, and this was usually very painful to the patient.

But I was always struck by the extraordinary stoicism with which the victims bore their sufferings.

I have seen many of them, sometimes terribly beaten, and hardly one of them uttered a groan!

It is not a disease that can be simulated; it is unmistakable. And by the way, are convicts put into fetters merely to prevent them escaping or to make it more difficult for them to do so? Certainly not.

Fetters are simply a form of degradation, a disgrace, and a physical and moral burden.

That at least is what they are meant to be. They could never hinder anyone from running away. The least skilful, the least expert convict can quickly and easily file them off or can smash the rivet with a stone.

But their eyes met and something made Tchekunov’s lower lip quiver; he twisted it into a grin and nodding rapidly, as it were involuntarily, towards the dead man, he said to the sergeant:

“He too had a mother!” and he walked away.

I remember those words stabbed me to the heart. What made him say them, what made him think of them? They began lifting the dead body: they lifted the bed as well;

… say in defence of these renegades, these wolves in the fold, however one may ascribe their shortcomings, for instance, to the “environment” of which they too are the victims, they will always be greatly to blame, especially if they also show a lack of humanity.

Humanity, kindness, brotherly sympathy are sometimes of more use to the patients than any medicines.

It is high time we gave up apathetic complaints of being corrupted by our environment.

… joking, but swore in earnest that if he had not from childhood—his earliest, tenderest childhood—always been under the lash, so that his back had literally never been free from scars all the while he lived with his horde, he never could have endured the punishment.

He seemed to bless his education under the lash.

“I was beaten for everything, Alexandr Petrovitch!”

… and so he feels no hatred, but takes what has happened to him as something inevitable which has not began with him and will not end with him, but will go on for long ages as part of a passive, but stubborn and old-established feud.

No soldier hates the individual Turk he is fighting with; yet the Turk stabs him, hacks at him, shoots him.

Yet not all the stories I heard, however, showed the same coolness and indifference. They talked of Lieutenant Zherebyatnikov, for instance, with a certain shade of indignation, though even in this case the feeling was not very strong.

… made of the same clay as himself, a brother in the law of Christ—anyone who has experienced the power and full licence to inflict the greatest humiliation upon another creature made in the image of God, will unconsciously lose the mastery of his own sensations.

Tyranny is a habit; it may develop and it does develop, at last, into a disease.

I maintain that the very best of men may be coarsened and hardened into a brute by habit. Blood and power intoxicate; coarseness and depravity are developed;

Tyranny is a habit; it may develop and it does develop, at last, into a disease. I maintain that the very best of men may be coarsened and hardened into a brute by habit.

Blood and power intoxicate; coarseness and depravity are developed; the mind and the heart are tolerant of the most abnormal things, till at last they come to relish them.

The man and the citizen is lost forever in the tyrant, and the return to human dignity, to repentance and regeneration becomes almost impossible. Moreover, the example, the possibility of such despotism has a perverting influence on the whole of society:

But now it is the beginning of April, and Easter is drawing near. Little by little the summer work begins. Every day the sun is warmer and more brilliant; the air is fragrant with spring and has a disquieting influence on the nerves.

The coming of spring agitates even the man in fetters, arouses even in him vague desires, cravings and a yearning melancholy.

I think one pines for liberty more in the bright sunshine than in dull winter or autumn days, and that may be noticed in all prisoners. Although they seem glad of the fine days, yet at the same time their impatience and restlessness is intensified.

One may have to go for days together without bread; one must keep in hiding, out of sight of everyone; one may be driven to steal, to rob and sometimes even to murder.

“A convict free is like a baby, what he wants he takes,”

is what they say in Siberia of the convict settlers. This saying applies in full force and even with some additions to the tramp.

Yet, on the whole, the life of a tramp in the forest is paradise compared with prison. That is easy to understand and indeed there can be no comparison.

Though it’s a hard life, it is freedom.

That is why every convict in Russia, whatever prison he may be in, grows restless in the spring with the first kindly rays of sunshine. Though by no means everyone intends to run away;

During those first few years I often used to go into the hospital, though I had no illness, simply to avoid being in prison, simply to escape from this obstinate, irreconcilable hatred.

“You have beaks of iron, you’ve pecked us to death,” the convicts used to say to us

, and how I used to envy the peasants who were brought to the prison! They were looked upon as comrades by everyone at once. And so the spring, the phantom of freedom, the general rejoicing of nature affected me with melancholy and nervous restlessness.

At first I could only carry eight bricks and each brick weighed nearly eleven pounds. But I got up to twelve and even fifteen bricks later on and that was a great joy to me.

In prison physical strength is no less necessary than moral strength to enable one to endure the hardships of that accursed manner of life.

And I wanted to go on living when I got out of prison.

He was a veterinary surgeon, partly of gipsy descent, who used to earn money by doctoring horses in the town, and sold vodka in prison. He was a clever fellow and had seen a good deal.

He dropped his words as though he were bestowing roubles.

“That’s the truth, lads,” he went on calmly. “I heard it last week. There’s a general coming, a very important one, he’ll inspect the whole of Siberia. We all know he will be bribed too, but not by our old Eight-eyes;

“But in the evening he drives a different sort of cart. Fedka was saying so.”

“You’ll never wash a black dog white. It’s not the first time he’s drunk, is it?”

“I say, what if the general really does nothing? It is high time they took notice of their goings on!” the convicts said to each other in excitement.

None of my caresses could soften him; he pecked and struggled, would not take meat from me, and all the time I was near him he used to stare intently in my face with his savage piercing eyes.

Fierce and solitary he awaited death, mistrustful and hostile to all.

At last the convicts seemed to remember him, and though no one had mentioned him, or done anything for him for two months, everyone seemed suddenly to feel sympathy for him. They said that they must take the eagle out.

“

You can’t see him now, mates.

…”

He declared that he attacked the major without malice, simply to “accept suffering.” And who knows what psychological process was taking place in his heart then!

Without some goal and some effort to reach it no man can live.

When he has lost all hope, all object in life, man often becomes a monster in his misery. The one object of the prisoners was freedom and to get out of prison.

He declared that he attacked the major without malice, simply to “accept suffering.” And who knows what psychological process was taking place in his heart then! Without some goal and some effort to reach it no man can live.

When he has lost all hope, all object in life, man often becomes a monster in his misery.

The one object of the prisoners was freedom and to get out of prison.

But here I have been trying to classify all the prisoners, and that is hardly possible.

Real life is infinite in its variety in comparison with even the cleverest abstract generalization, and it does not admit of sharp and sweeping distinctions.

The tendency of real life is always towards greater and greater differentiation. We, too, had a life of our own of a sort, and it was not a mere official existence but a real inner life of our own.

This remoteness sometimes comes to pass of itself unconsciously through no ill-natured feeling on the part of the convicts. He is not one of themselves, and that’s all.

Nothing is more terrible than living out of one’s natural surroundings.

A peasant transported from Taganrog to the port of Petropavlovsk at once finds the Russian peasants there exactly like himself, at once understands them, and gets on with them, and in a couple of hours they may settle down peaceably to live in the same …

“Why not? You want your food chewed, and put into your mouth, that’s what you are used to. Because it’s prison, that’s why!”

“When simple folk fall out, the governor grows fat.”

“Just so. Eight-eyes has grown fat. He’s bought a pair of greys.”

“Good heavens! But some of you who joined in it buy your own food too. We ought to have done the same—as comrades.”

“But⁠ ⁠… but how can you be our comrades?” he asked in perplexity.

I looked at him quickly; he did not understand me in the least, he did not know what I was driving at. But I understood him thoroughly at that instant.

He looked viciously at the convicts. But all his prestige went with his uniform. In a uniform he was terrible, a deity. In civil dress he became absolutely a nonentity, and looked like a lackey.

It’s wonderful what the uniform does for men like that.

And I can hardly recollect everything. The later years have somehow been effaced from my memory. Many circumstances, I am quite sure, I have entirely forgotten. I remember that all those years, which were so much alike, passed drearily, miserably.

I remember that those long wearisome days were monotonous, as drops of water trickling from the roof after rain.

I remember that nothing but the passionate desire to rise up again, to be renewed, to begin a new life, gave me the strength to wait and to hope. And at last I mastered myself;