THE VISIT OF THE MINISTER—I AM TURNED INTO A CONVICT—THE PRISON AT KI?V
Shortly after my trial a feverish anxiety set in at the Odessa prison: the Minister of Justice was expected. Of course, everything except the straw and the tub was taken out of my cell; and one day the great man appeared, attended by an imposing suite—the governor of the town among the rest. As soon as Nabòkov saw me he greeted me by name, which seemed to excite the governor’s interest in no small degree.
“Your Excellency is pleased to recognise Deutsch?”
“Oh yes; we have met in Petersburg,” answered Nabòkov in an agreeable tone, as if recalling a meeting in some elegant drawing-room instead of in a prison. He then turned to me, to tell me that he had received my petition, and had “reported to His Majesty”; but the Tsar had pronounced that as a former member of the army I must go before a court-martial, and therefore that had been the only course. The manner in which I was lodged seemed to strike the minister unpleasantly, for he looked round my cell, and asked if I were properly treated and had no complaints to make. I now learned that my transference to Moscow was decided on; that I was to winter there, and remain until the journey to Siberia was possible.
The way in which the minister had spoken to me seemed to have made a powerful impression on the prison authorities; for scarcely had “His Excellency” left the place 95than the governor hastened to my cell, and took me to one much more comfortable, where were a good bed, a table, and a chair.
“A report has been made to His Majesty himself about you!” I was therefore a person of consequence, and the governor’s official soul was troubled. I was offered books from a lending library, and was henceforth treated with marked civility. Of course, I knew that this alteration really proceeded from orders given by the three functionaries spoken of in a previous chapter, who had been the cause of my former ill-treatment. This is a striking example of the arbitrary way in which prisoners are used.
I had not much longer to enjoy these marks of favour. A fortnight later I was informed that a party of convicts would start for Moscow that evening. I was to accompany them, and accordingly must assume the convict garb. After eighteen years I think of that day with a shudder.
First of all, I was taken into a room where was stored everything necessary to the equipment of a convict under sentence. On the floor lay piles of chains; and clothes, boots, etc., were heaped on shelves. From among them some were selected that were supposed to fit me; and I was then conducted to a second room. Here the right side of my head was shaved, and the hair on the left side cut short. I had seen people in the prison who had been treated in this fashion, and the sight had always made a painful impression on me, as indeed it does on everyone. But when I saw my own face in the glass a cold shudder ran down my spine, and I experienced a sensation of personal degradation to something less than human. I thought of the days—in Russia not so long ago—when criminals were branded with hot irons.
A convict was waiting ready to fasten on my fetters. I was placed on a stool, and had to put my foot on an anvil. The blacksmith fitted an iron ring round each ankle, and welded it together. Every stroke of the 96hammer made my heart sink, as I realised that a new existence was beginning for me.
The mental depression into which I now fell was soon accompanied by physical discomfort. The fetters at first caused me intolerable pain in walking, and even disturbed my sleep. It also requires considerable practice before one can easily manage to dress and undress. The heavy chains—about 13 lbs. in weight—are not only an encumbrance, but are very painful, as they chafe the skin round the ankles; and the leather lining is but little protection to those unaccustomed to these adornments. Another great torment is the continual clinking of the chains. It is indescribably irritating to the nervous, and reminds the prisoner at every turn that he is a pariah among his kind, “deprived of all rights.”
The transformation is completed by the peculiar convict dress, consisting—besides the coarse linen underclothing—of a grey gown made of special material, and a pair of trousers. Prisoners condemned to hard labour wear a square piece of yellow cloth sewn on their gowns. The feet are clad in leathern slippers nicknamed “cats.” All these articles of clothing are inconvenient, heavy, and ill-fitting.
I hardly knew myself when I looked in the glass and beheld a fully attired convict. The thought possessed me—“For long years you will have to go about in that hideous disguise.” Even the gendarme regarded me with compassion.
“What won’t they do to a man?” he said. And I could only try to comfort myself by thinking how many unpleasant things one gets used to, and that time might perhaps accustom one even to this.
My own clothes I gave away to the warders, and any possessions of value—watch, ring, cigarette-case—I sent by post to relations. I kept only my books. I had been given a bag in which to keep a change of linen; and into it I also put a few volumes of Shakespeare, Goethe, Heine, 97Molière, and Rousseau, thus completing my preparations for travelling.
PRISONERS MARCHING THROUGH THE STREETS OF ODESSA
To face page 96
Evening came. The officer in command of the convoy appeared in the prison courtyard with his men and took the party in charge. I was conducted to the office. A statyehny spìsok[41] is prepared for each individual convict, in which his name and place of exile are entered, and also a list of the exciseable things he takes with him. In the statyehny spìsok of each political prisoner his photograph is pasted, and in mine there were two.
The officer carefully went through all these dossiers. We were then arranged in processional order. The soldiers surrounded us; the officer lifted his cap and crossed himself.
“A pleasant journey! Good-bye!” called out the prison officials.
“Thanks. Good-bye!” cried the officer. He then gave the signal to start, and off we marched at a slow pace to the station.
On account of the conditions attached by the Grand Duke of Baden to my extradition, I had till now been treated sometimes as an ordinary criminal, sometimes as a “political”; but from the moment I joined this convoy I was treated frankly as a “political.”[42] This being so, I was not placed among the ordinary criminals when we reached the train, but was put in the compartment reserved for the escort. Here there was a fair amount of room, and one could be pretty comfortable, while the others were packed like herrings in a barrel; but, on the other hand, the society of the soldiers was not very enlivening, as they dared not exchange a word with me in presence of the officer.
98After four-and-twenty hours we arrived at Ki?v, where we were to have a day’s rest. We got out of the train, were formed up in procession, encircled by the soldiers, and marched by a roundabout way through the suburbs to the prison.
A strange emotion possessed me, when, after years of wandering both in Russia and abroad, I once again passed through the streets of my native town. I had not been here since I had fled from prison in 1878, six years before; and now I returned in chains, with the ominous yellow diamond on my back, a convict doomed to years of exile.
“Get on, get on! Mind what you’re about!” I heard a rough voice say, and felt a poke in my back from the butt-end of a rifle.
“This is the beginning,” I thought, and pictured all the humiliation and suffering that lay before me. However, the officer had remarked the incident, and coming up, reprimanded the soldier who had hustled me.
When we came to the prison gate the convicts were told off one by one like sheep, and let through the door in turn. I was taken straight to the office. Here everything was altered, and everywhere faces were strange to me. Fat old Captain Kovàlsky was gone, and the rest of the staff had been changed too.
“It was from this prison you escaped?” asked a haughty-looking man in uniform, the new governor, Simàshko. I assented.
“Ah, you managed that very cunningly!” said he, laughing.
In reality the thing had been very simple. One of my comrades, named Frolènko, had provided himself with a false passport, and had got employment in the prison; one night he took Stefanòvitch, Bohanòvsky and me away disguised as warders.[43]
99After the usual formalities I was led away to my cell, and as I passed along the corridors I noticed that structural alterations had been made everywhere. The cell in which I was installed was unusually large, and was almost filled up by the wooden bedshelves; apparently it was generally used for a large number of prisoners temporarily confined there, and had now been assigned for my sole occupation, so that I might not be ............