Every one was moving early, the drum beat was heard long before dawn and the convicts were well up and dressed when the officer of the day came in to muster the men and wish them a happy Christmas. This interchange of compliments was general even between convicts who had not spoken to each other before; those who had once quarrelled forgot their enmity in the desire for peace and good-will. A sort of universal friendship prevailed in harmony with the sentiment of the day. It was encouraged by the good feeling expressed from outside, for relays of gifts of food, great and small, began to arrive from the town to be distributed among the prisoners.
The kitchens were the chief centre of interest. Great fires were blazing, and the cooks were preparing the festive entertainment, under the eyes, or with the assistance of the convicts themselves. Every one supplemented the daily ration with choice morsels privately purchased out of hard-earned savings. But no one tasted food until the priest arrived with cross and holy water; a small table had been prepared for him with a holy image on it, and before it a lamp was burning. After he had conducted the service, the pre-Christmas fast ended, and the feast began by the permission of the commandant, who had visited the barrack formally and tasted the cabbage soup, but had made no remark about the additional delicacies provided and which were now brought in to be greedily devoured.
The scene presently degenerated into an orgy. Faces became flushed with drink and good cheer; the balalaiki, or banjos, were produced; the fiddler, paid by a convivial convict, played lively dance music. The conversation became more and more animated and more and more noisy, but the dinner ended without great disorder. Later, drunkenness was general; it was no offence that day, and even the officers, who made the regulation visits, paid no attention. The antics of the intoxicated were an amusing spectacle to most. But a few of the more orderly and right-thinking showed their disapproval. The “old believer” from Starodub climbed up to his favourite perch on top of the stove and fervently prayed for the rest of the day. The sight of these excesses was exceedingly painful to him. The Mahometan prisoners took no part in the revels; they looked on with much curiosity and manifest disgust. The youth Nourra, already mentioned, shook his head crying, “Aman, Aman. Alas! Alas! It is an offence to Allah!” The Jew, Isaiah Fomich, declined to join in a celebration commemorating an offence committed by his co-religionists, and to show his contempt for Christ, lighted a candle and went to work in a favourite corner.
As the day passed, reckless self-indulgence gradually increased, but the general drunkenness and debauchery began to lapse into wearisome depression. Men who had been convulsed with uproarious laughter became maudlin and dropped into some out of the way spot, weeping bitter tears; others, pale and sickly, tottered about, seeking quarrels with all whom they met. Old differences were revived; disputes soon developed into personal conflicts; frequently two of the men would come to blows as to which should stand treat to the other. The whole spectacle was insupportable, nauseating and repulsive. The great festival, which should have passed with so much delight, ended in dejection and disappointment. The convicts, drunken or sober, alike dropped down on their camp beds and slept heavily.
In some countries prisoners have been permitted to find relief in theatrical performances. It was so in the Spanish presidios, and here in the old Russian ostrog a dramatic entertainment, on a most ambitious scale, was a feature of the Christmas holidays. A convict company was organised very secretly; it was always uncertain whether the major would consent, and all was kept from his knowledge until the last moment. The rehearsals were quite private; the names of the plays were unknown, or how the costumes and scenery were to be obtained. The stage was created in a space cleared in the centre of the barrack, and could be put up and taken down in a quarter of an hour. The moving spirit was one Bakluchin, who had been a soldier in Riga, and had murdered his rival, a German, whom he had caught paying addresses to his fiancée and who was preferred by her. This Bakluchin, who was thirty years old, was of lofty stature, with a frank, determined countenance, but good-natured and generally popular. He had the comedian’s knack of changing his face in comic imitation of any passer-by, and convulsed all who saw him. As the projected performance took place, Bakluchin swelled with ill-concealed importance and boasted of the success he would achieve. He went about declaiming portions of his part and amusing everybody by anticipation.
Two popular pieces were chosen for performance, plays from an old book, preserved by memory in the traditions of the prison. Many of the “properties,” too, had been handed down, carefully concealed in secret places for years. One of them, the curtain, which was a work of art, was composed of numerous scraps of cloth sewed together, such as the linen of old shirts, bandages, and underwear; even pieces of strong paper were added to fill in empty spaces; and on the surface was painted in oil a landscape with trees and ponds of flowers. This curtain delighted the convicts and shared the first applause with the orchestra of eight instruments,—two violins, three banjos, two guitars and a tambourine. The musicians played well, and the tunes were all original and distinctive.
The audience, before the curtain rose, crowded and crushed into the narrow theatre, wild with suppressed excitement. Two benches were placed immediately in front of the stage, which was lighted with candle ends. These seats, with one or two chairs, were for the officers who might deign to be present,—the overseers, clerks, directors of works and engineers. Behind stood the convicts respectfully, row after row. Some were posted on the camp beds or had climbed up on the porcelain stove, and every face glowed with delight, a strange look of infinite contentment and unmixed pleasure shining on these scarred and branded countenances so generally dark and forbidding. Everyone was dressed in his best, his short sheepskin pelisse, in spite of the suffocating heat, and each face was damp with perspiration. Everyone was there: The Tartars and Circassians, who showed a passionate delight for the theatre; Young Ali, whose childish face beamed and whose laughter was contagious; the Jew, Isaiah Fomich, who was in an ecstasy from the rising of the curtain to its fall, and rejoiced at the chance of showing off, for when the plate was passed he ostentatiously contributed the imposing sum of ten kopecks, or twopence, halfpenny.
As the play proceeded, it was received with warm applause. Cries of approbation were heard in all parts of the house. The convicts nudged each other with loud whispers, calling attention to the jokes, laughing uproariously, smacking their lips and clacking their tongues, and toward the end the gaiety reached its climax. “Imagine the convict prison,” says Dostoyevski, “the chains of long years of captivity in close confinement, the bodily toil monotonous and unending, the accumulated, long protracted misery and despair, and the grim place of durance transformed on this occasion into one of light-hearted amusement where prisoners might forget their condition, dismiss the nightmare of crime and breathe freely and laugh aloud.”
A comedy in prison! The convicts were in costumes altogether different from the daily garb of shame, but with the inseparable chains always obstructing. One was in female attire, wearing an old worn-out muslin dress, with neck and arms bare and a pert calico cap on his half shaven head. Another represented a gentleman of fashion in a frock coat, round hat and cloak, but his chains rattled as he strutted across the stage; one was in the full-dress but faded uniform of an aide-de-camp. There were convicts in many characters, strange and varied: a nobleman, an innkeeper, demons, a Brahmin in flowing robes. Every one was delighted when the performance ended, and the convicts separated, quite pleased to have been taken away from themselves for a brief space, full of praise for the actors and of gratitude to their superiors, who had permitted the play to be given. It was a wise concession, for the convicts made a point of conducting themselves in the most exemplary fashion.
The prisoners in the ostrog were fond of live animals, and if permitted, would have filled the prison with domesticated pets. They had dogs, geese, a horse and even an eagle whom they vainly sought to tame. “Bull” was a good-sized black dog with white spots, intelligent eyes and a bushy tail. He lived in the prison enclosure, slept in the courtyard, ate the waste scraps from the kitchen and had little hold on the sympathy of the men, all of whom he regarded as masters and owners. He came to greet the working parties on their return from labour, wagging his tail and looking for the caresses which he seldom got. Dostoyevski, as he tells us, was one of the first to make friends with Bull by giving him a piece of bread and patting him on the back, which pleased him greatly. “That evening, not having seen me for the whole day,” says the author, “he ran up to me leaping and barking. Then he put his paws on my shoulders and looked me in the face. ‘Here is a friend sent to me by destiny,’ I said to myself, and during the first weeks, so full of pain, every time I returned to the barrack I hastened to fondle and make much of Bull.”