LITMIR.BIZ

       VI

      PRISON LIFE

       Table of Contents

       When a man is suddenly uprooted and finds himself obliged to spend years in a strange world, with people whose coarseness and lack of education are bound to distress him, he thinks out a plan by means of which he may avoid the worst blows to his susceptibilities, adopts an attitude, and resolves on a certain course of conduct. Some entrench themselves in silence and disdain, hoping to be left in peace; others become flatterers, and seek to purchase their repose by the basest adulation. Dostoyevsky, condemned to Uve for years in prison, in the midst of a redoubtable band of criminals, who, having nothing to lose, feared nothing and were capable of anything, chose a very different attitude; he adopted a tone of Christian fraternity. This was no new part to him; he had already essayed it when, as a child, he had approached the iron gate in his father's private garden and, risking a punishment, had entered into conversation with the poor patients of the hospital; again, when he had talked with the peasant-serfs of Darovoye, and tried to gain their affection by helping the poor women in their field-work. He adopted the same fraternal tone later when he studied the poor of Petersburg in the small cafis and drink-shops of the capital, playing billiards with them, and offering them their choice of refreshments the while he tried to surprise the secrets of their hearts. Dostoyevsky realised that he would never become a great writer by frequenting elegant drawing-rooms, full of polite people in -well-cut coats, with fashionable cravats, empty heads, anaemic hearts and colourless souls. Every writer depends on the people, on the simple souls who have never been taught the art of hiding their sufferings under a veil of trivial words. The moujiks of Yasnaia Poliana taught Tolstoy more than his Moscow friends could teach him. The peasants who accompanied Turgenev on his sporting expeditions gave him more original ideas than his European friends. Dostoyevsky in his turn depended on poor people, and from his childhood, instinctively sought a means of approaching them. This science, which he had already acquired to some extent, was to prove of the greatest service to him in Siberia.

      Dostoyevsky has not concealed from us his method of making himself beloved by his fellow-convicts. In his novel. The Idiot, he describes his first steps in detail. Prince Mishkin, the descendant of a long line of ancestors of European culture, is travelling on a cold winter's day. He is a Russian, but having spent all his youth in Switzerland, he knows little of his fatherland. Russia interests and attracts him greatly; he longs to enter into her soul and discover her secrets. As the Prince is poor, he travels third class. He is no snob; his coarse, common fellow-travellers inspire no disgust in him. They are the first real Russians he has seen; in Switzerland he met only our intellectuals, who aped Europeans, and political refugees, who, speaking a horrible jargon they called Russian, posed as the representatives of the sacred dreams of our nation. Prince Mishkin realises that hitherto he had seen only copies and caricatures, he longs to know the originals at last. Looking sympathetically at his third-class companions, he waits only for the first sentence to enter into conversation with them. His fellow-travellers observe him with curiosity; they had never seen such a bird at close quarters before. The Prince's polite manners and European dress seemed ridiculous to them. They entered into conversation with him to make a fool of him, that they might have some fun at his expense. They laughed rudely, nudging each other, at the Prince's first words; but gradually, as he went on speaking, they ceased to laugh. His charming courtesy, his freedom from snobbishness, his ingenuous manner of treating them as his equals, as people of his own world, made them realise that they were in the presence of an extremely rare and curious creature—a true Christian. The youthful Rogogin feels the attraction of this Christian kindness, and hastens to pour out the secret of his heart to this distinguished unknown, who listens to him with so much interest. Though illiterate, Rogogin is very intelligent; he understands that Prince Mishkin is morally his superior. He admires and reverences him, but he sees clearly that the poor Prince is but a big child, an artless dreamer, who has no knowledge of life. He knows how malicious and relentless the world is. The idea of protecting this charming Prince enters Rogogin's noble heart. " Dear Prince," he says, when he takes leave of him in the station at Petersburg, " Come and see me. I will have a good pelisse made for you, and I will give you money and magnificent clothes, suitable to your rank."

      Dostoyevsky arrived in Siberia on a cold winter's day. He travelled third-class, in company with thieves and murderers, whom the mother-country was sending away from her to the different convict-stations of Siberia. He observed his new companions with curiosity. Here it was at last, the real Russia which he had vainly sought in Petersburg I Here they were, those Russians, a curious mixture of Slavs and Mongolians, who had conquered a sixth part of the world ! Dostoyevsky studied the gloomy faces of his fellow-travellers, and that second sight which all serious writers have more or less, enabled him to decipher their thoughts and read their child-like hearts. He looked sympathetically

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