“You nobles have iron beaks, you have torn us to pieces. When you were masters, you injured the people, and now, when it’s evil days with you, you want to be our brothers.”
This theme was developed during four years.
A hundred and fifty foes never wearied of persecuting us — it was their joy, their diversion, their pastime; our sole shield was our indifference and our moral superiority, which they were forced to recognize and respect; they were also impressed by our never yielding to their will. They were for ever conscious that we stood above them. They had not the least idea of what our offence had been.
We kept our own counsel about that, and so we could never come to understand one another; we had to let the whole of the vindictiveness, the whole of the hatred, that they cherish against the nobility, flow over us. We had a very bad time there. A military prison is much worse than the ordinary ones. I spent the whole four years behind dungeon walls, and only left the prison when I was taken on “hard labour.” The labour was hard, though not always; sometimes in bad weather, in rain, or in winter during the unendurable frosts, my strength would forsake me.
Once I had to spend four hours at a piece of extra work, and in such frost that the quicksilver froze; it was perhaps forty degrees below zero. One of my feet was frost-bitten. We all lived together in one barrack-room. Imagine an old, crazy wooden building, that should long ago have been broken up as useless. In the summer it is unbearably hot, in the winter unbearably cold. All the boards are rotten. On the ground filth lies an inch thick; every instant one is in danger of slipping and coming down.
The small windows are so frozen over that even by day one can hardly read. The ice on the panes is three inches thick. The ceilings drip, there are draughts everywhere. We are packed like herrings in a barrel. The stove is heated with six logs of wood, but the room is so cold that the ice never once thaws; the atmosphere is unbearable — and so through all the winter long. In the same room, the prisoners wash their linen, and thus make the place so wet that one scarcely dares to move.
From twilight till morning we are forbidden to leave the barrack-room; the doors are barricaded; in the ante-room a great wooden trough for the calls of nature is placed; this makes one almost unable to breathe. All the prisoners stink like pigs; they say that they can’t help it, for they must live, and are but men. We slept upon bare boards; each man was allowed one pillow only. We covered ourselves with short sheepskins, and our feet were outside the covering all the time.
It was thus that we froze night after night. Fleas, lice, and other vermin by the bushel. In the winter we got thin sheepskins to wear, which didn’t keep us warm at all, and boots with short legs; thus equipped, we had to go out in the frost.
To eat we got bread and cabbage-soup: the soup should, by the regulations, have contained a quarter-pound of meat per head; but they put in sausage-meat, and so I never came across a piece of genuine flesh. On feast-days we got porridge, but with scarcely any butter. On fast-days — cabbage and nothing else. My stomach went utterly to pieces, and I suffered tortures from indigestion.
From all this you can see for yourself that one couldn’t live there at all without money; if I had had none, I should most assuredly have perished; no one could endure such a life. But every convict does some sort of work and sells it, thus earning, every single one of them, a few pence. I often drank tea and bought myself a piece of meat; it was my salvation. It was quite impossible to do without smoking, for otherwise the stench would have choked one. All these things were done behind the backs of the officials.
I was often in hospital. My nerves were so shattered that I had some epileptic fits — however, that was not very often. I have rheumatism in my legs now, too. But except for that, I feel right well.
Add to all these discomforts, the fact that it was almost impossible to get one’s self a book, and that when I did get one, I had to read it on the sly; that all around me was incessant malignity, turbulence, and quarrelling; then perpetual espionage, and the impossibility of ever being alone for even an instant — and so without variation for four long years: you’ll believe me when I tell you that I was not happy. And imagine, in addition, the ever-present dread of drawing down some punishment on myself, the irons, and the utter oppression of spirits — and you have the picture of my life.
I won’t even try to tell you what transformations were undergone by my soul, my faith, my mind, and my heart in those four years. It would be a long story. Still, the eternal concentration, the escape into myself from bitter reality, did bear its fruit. I now have many new needs and hopes of which I never thought in other days. But all this will be pure enigma for you, and so I’ll pass to other things. I will say only one word: Do not forget me, and do help me. I need books and money. Send them me, for Christ’s sake.
Omsk is a hateful hole. There is hardly a tree here. In summer — heat and winds that bring sandstorms; in winter — snow-storms. I have scarcely seen anything of the country round. The place is dirty, almost exclusively inhabited by military, and dissolute to the last degree. I mean the common people. If I hadn’t discovered some human beings here, I should have gone utterly to the dogs.
Constantine Ivanovitch Ivanov is like a brother to me. He has done everything that he in any way could for me. I owe him money. If he ever goes to Petersburg, show him some recognition. I owe him twenty-five roubles. But how can I repay his kindness, his constant willingness to carry out all my requests, his attention and care for me, just like a brother’s? And he is not the only one whom I have to thank in that way. Brother, there are very many noble natures in the world.
I have already said that your silence often tortured me. I thank you for the money you sent. In your next letter (even if it’s “official,” for I don’t know yet whether it is possible for me to correspond with you) — in your next, write as fully as you can of all your affairs, of Emilie Fyodorovna, the children, all relations and acquaintances; also of those in Moscow — who is alive and who is dead;and of your business: tell me with what capital you started it, (Michael Dostoevsky had at this time a tobacco and cigarette factory.) whether it is lucrative, whether you are in funds, and finally, whether you will help me financially, and how much you will send me a year.
But send no money with the official letter — particularly if I don’t find a covering address. For the present, give Michael Petrovitch as the consignor of all packets (you understand, don’t you?). For the time I have some money, but I have no books. If you can, send me the magazines for this year, or at any rate the O. Z. But what I urgently need are the following; I need (very necessary) ancient historians (in French translations); modem historians: Guizot, Thierry, Thiers, Ranke, and so forth; national studies, and the Fathers of the Church..Choose the cheapest and most compact editions. Send them by return.
They have ordered me to Semipalatinsk, which lies on the edge of the Kirghiz steppes; I’ll let you have the address. Here is one for the present, anyhow; “Semipalatinsk, Siberian Regiment of the Line, Seventh Battalion, Private F. Dostoevsky.” That’s the official style. To this one send your letters. But I’ll give you another for the books. For the present, write as Michael Petrovitch. Remember, above all things, I need a German dictionary.
I don’t know what awaits me at Semipalatinsk. I don’t mind the service much. But what I do care about is — exert yourself for me, spend yourself for me with somebody or other. Could they not transfer me in a year or two to the Caucasus? Then I should at least be in European Russia! This is my dearest desire, grant it me, for Christ’s sake! Brother, do not forget me! I write and scold you and dispose of your very property!
But my faith in you is not yet extinguished. You are my brother, and you used to love me. I need money. I must have something to live on, brother. These years shall not have been in vain. I want money and books. What you spend on me will not be lost. If you give me help, you won’t be robbing your children. If I live, I’ll repay you with interest — oh, a thousandfold. In six years, perhaps even sooner, I shall surely get permission to print my books. It may indeed be quite otherwise, but I don’t write recklessly now. You shall hear of me again.
We shall see one another some day, brother. I believe in that as
