Another dog was called Snow. He was a luckless creature who had been driven over and injured in the spine by the wheels of a telyega, “country cart.” He looked like two dogs because of the curvature of his spine, and he was mangy, with bleared eyes and a hairless tail always drooping between his hind legs. Snow was abjectly submissive to all, both men and fellow-dogs. He never barked nor made overtures, but continually turned on his back to curry favour, and received the kick of every passer without a sign of resentment, except that if hurt he would often utter one low deprecatory yelp. When surprised with a caress wholly unexpected and unusual, he quivered and whined plaintively with delight. His fate was sad and brutal; he was torn to pieces by other dogs in the ditch of the fortress.
A third dog was Kultiapka, brought in as a puppy soon after he had been born in one of the prison workshops. Bull took him under his especial protection and “fathered” and played with him. He was always of abbreviated height but grew steadily in length and breadth, and was quaint in appearance. One ear hung constantly down while the other was always cocked up. He had a fine, fluffy, mouse-coloured coat which cost him his life. One of the convicts who made ladies’ shoes cast greedy eyes upon Kultiapka, and having felt his skin lured him into a corner, killed and flayed him. A little later the young wife of one of the officers appeared in a smart pair of velvet boots trimmed with mouse coloured fur.
Tanning and skin dressing was a trade much followed in the prison. Dogs which had been stolen by servants were brought in and sold. On one occasion a fine black dog of good breed was disposed of by a scamp of a footman for thirty kopecks. The poor beast must have anticipated what was in store for him, for he looked up at the convicts in a distressed, beseeching way, but could find no pity, and he was speedily hanged. The same fate overtook the prison goat, a beautiful white kid of whom every one was fond. The pretty creature was full of grace and was very playful, jumping on and off the kitchen table, wrestling with the convicts and always full of fun and spirits. He grew up into a fine, fat beast with magnificent horns, which it was proposed to gild and which were often decorated with flowers. It was the custom for the goat to march at the head of the convicts when returning from labour, and when the eyes of the choleric major fell upon it in the procession, he forthwith ordered it to be executed. The goat was killed and flayed; both carcass and skin were sold in the prison; the latter went to the leather dresser, the former, which fetched a ruble and fifty kopecks, was roasted and the flesh retailed among the convicts.
Other strange pets were a flock of geese, which somehow had been hatched within the enclosure, and as they grew up they attached themselves to the prisoners and would march out with them regularly to labour. When the drum beat and the parties assembled at the great gate, the geese came cackling, flapping their wings and hopping along. While the convicts worked, the geese pecked about close at hand until the time came for return, when they again joined the procession and marched with their friends solemnly back to the barracks, to the great amusement of the bystanders. The close attachment between the birds and their friends did not save the geese from having their necks twisted and being added to the dinner on a feast day.
The captive eagle did not take kindly to detention. It had been brought in wounded, with a broken wing and half dead. Nothing could domesticate or tame it. It gazed fiercely and fearlessly on the curious crowd and opened its beak as if determined to sell its life dearly. As soon as a chance came it hopped away on one leg, flapping its one uninjured wing, and hid in a far-off, inaccessible corner, from which it never emerged. The convicts often gathered to stare at it and would bait it with the dog Bull, who hesitated, in wholesome dread of the savage bird’s beak and claws. The eagle long refused food, and although he finally took meat and drank water left with him, he would consume nothing that was given him by hand or when any one’s eye was upon him. When no one was near, he would creep out of his corner and take a walk of a dozen steps, hopping and limping backward and forward with great regularity under the lee of the stockade. He resisted pugnaciously all overtures to friendship, and would suffer no one to pet him or pat him but pined away, lonely and irreconcilable, waiting only for death.
At last the convicts were moved to compassion for the caged bird, deprived of liberty like themselves. It was seriously discussed whether he ought not to be set free. So he was securely tied, taken out to the ramparts when the parties went to labour, and thrown out on the bare, barren steppe. The bird immediately hurried away, flapping his wounded wing and striving desperately to get out of sight of his captors. They looked after him enviously; they had given him the freedom they did not possess, a boon they hungered for unceasingly night and day, winter and summer, but especially when the sun shone bright and they could see the boundless plain stretching away in the blue distance beyond the river Irtysh and across the free Kirghiz Steppe.
Dostoyevski feelingly records his sensations when the day for his release at length arrived. The night before, as darkness fell, he went round the enclosure for the last time, revisiting every spot where he had suffered the bitter pangs of imprisonment, solitary and despairing,—the place where he had counted over and over again the thousands and thousands of days he had still to remain inside. The next morning, before the exodus for labour, he made the rounds to bid his comrades farewell; and many a coarse, horny hand was held out to him with hearty good-will. The generous souls gave him Godspeed, but others who were more envious turned their backs on him and would not reply to his kindly greetings. His last visit was to the blacksmith’s shop. He went without escort, and placed his feet on the anvil, each in turn; the rivets were struck out of the basils and he was freed from his chains.
“Liberty! New life, resurrection from the dead! Unspeakable moment!”
CHAPTER VI
TIUMEN AND TOMSK
New route taken by exiles since opening of the Trans-Siberian railway—Increased numbers produced overcrowding in all prisons both in Europe and Asia—The “forwarding prisons” the cause of much distress—The Tiumen prison; cells, kitchen, hospital—Infectious diseases—Death-rate—Tomsk forwarding prison—Conditions worse than at Tiumen—The balagan or family “kamera”—Futile attempts to dispute incontrovertible evidence—“Étapes” or road prisons and “polu étapes” or half-way houses—Distance covered daily by the marching parties—The “telyegas” or country carts which carried the sick—Method of buying provisions from villagers en route—The “étape” of Achinsk—Infectious diseases in these prisons—The reports of Governor-General Anuchin—Sympathy of the Czar Alexander III.