It was the same in far-off Siberia. At Omsk, where Dostoyevski was confined for four years, gifts were sent to the prison at Christmastide in enormous quantities,—loaves of white bread, scones, rusks, pancakes and pastry of various kinds. There was not a shopkeeper in the whole town who did not send something to the “unfortunates.” Among these gifts were some magnificent ones, including many cakes of the finest flour, and also some very poor ones, rolls worth no more than a couple of kopecks, the offerings of the poor to the poor, on which a last kopeck had been spent. These delicacies were divided in equal portions among the occupants of the various prison barracks, and caused neither protest or annoyance, as every one was satisfied.
There were good Samaritans in Siberia who spent their lives in giving charitable assistance to the “unfortunates.” Dostoyevski very rightly calls their compassion, which is quite disinterested, “something sacred.” There was a lady in the town of Omsk who laboured unceasingly to assist all exiles and especially the convicts in the prison. It was conjectured that some dear one in her family had gone through a like punishment, and, in any case, she spared no effort to offer help and sympathy. The most she could do was but little, for she was very poor; “but,” says the author, “we convicts felt when we were shut up in the prison that outside we had a devoted friend.” He made her acquaintance when leaving the town, and with some of his comrades spent an entire evening at her house. “She was neither old nor young, neither pretty nor ugly. It was not easy to guess whether she was intelligent or high-bred. But in her actions could be seen infinite compassion, and an irresistible desire to please, to solace, to be in some way agreeable. All this could be read in the sweetness of her smile.”
When her visitors left she gave each of them a cardboard cigar box of her own making. It was all but valueless, but the gift was inestimable as a proof of her desire to be remembered. Dostoyevski here analyses the theory that a great love for one’s neighbour is only a form of selfishness, and asks very pertinently what selfishness could animate such a nature as this.
But for the charity of the Siberian peasantry, the terrible journey of many thousands into exile could never be accomplished. The government issues a beggarly allowance in cash, a sum varying between five and twelve kopecks per head, according to the locality, out of which the exiles provide their own food. The prices also vary with the season and the harvests. This money hardly suffices for the commonest ration; it will buy at most bread, a few vegetables and a little tea. Gambling is, however, such an ingrained vice that many waste all of their substance daily, and the spendthrifts would starve but for begging by the road. When a party passes a village, permission is sought from the convoy officer to raise the miloserdnaya or “exiles’ begging song,” and selected convicts go from door to door, cap in hand, soliciting alms.
This song is inconceivably pathetic. George Kennan, who often heard it, declares that it resembles nothing with which he was acquainted. It is not singing nor chanting, nor like wailing for the dead, but a strange blending of all three. “It suggests vaguely the confused and commingled sobs, moans and entreaties of human beings who were being subjected to torture, but whose sufferings were not acute enough to seek expression in shrieks or high pitched cries.... No attempt was made by the singers to pitch their voices in harmony or pronounce the words in unison. There were no pauses or rests at the ends of the lines, no distinctly marked rhythm. The singers seemed to be constantly breaking in upon one another with slightly modulated variation of the same slow, melancholy air, and the effect produced was that of a rude fugue of a funeral chant.” The following is an extract from the words sung:—
“Have pity on us, O our fathers!
Do not forget the unwilling travellers,
Do not forget the long imprisoned.
Feed us, O our fathers—help us!
Feed and help the poor and needy!