Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/119

 you make him forget that he is a human being. And as he really is a human being he ought to be treated humanely. My God, yes! Humane treatment may humanize even one in whom the image of God has long been obscured. These “unfortunates” need even more humane treatment than others. It is their salvation and their joy. I have met some good-hearted, high-minded officers. I have seen the influence they exerted on these degraded creatures. A few kind words from them meant almost a moral resurrection for the convicts. They were as pleased as children and as children began to love them. I must mention another strange thing: the convicts themselves do not like to be treated too familiarly and too softly by their officers. They want to respect those in authority over them, and too much softness makes them cease to respect them. The convicts like their commanding officer to have decorations, too, they like him to be presentable, they like him to be in favour with some higher authority, they like him to be strict and important and just, and they like him to keep up his dignity. The convicts prefer such an officer: they feel that he keeps up his own dignity and does not insult them, and so they feel everything is right and as it should be.

“You must have caught it hot for that?” Kobylin observed calmly.

“H’m! Hot, my boy, yes—it was hot certainly. Aley, pass the scissors! Why is it they are not playing cards to-day, lads?"

“They’ve drunk up all their money,” observed Vassya. “If they hadn’t they’d have been playing.”

“If! They’ll give you a hundred roubles for an ‘if’ in Moscow,” observed Lutchka.

“And how much did you get altogether, Lutchka?” Kobylin began again.

“They gave me a hundred and five, my dear chap. And, you know, they almost killed me, mates,” Lutchka declared, abandoning Kobylin again. “They drove me out in full dress to be flogged. Till then I’d never tasted the lash. There were immense crowds, the whole town ran out: a robber was to be flogged, a murderer, to be sure. You can’t think what fools the people are, there’s no telling you. The hangman stripped me, made me lie down and shouted, ‘Look out, I’ll sting you.’ I wondered what was coming. At the first lash I wanted to shout, I opened my mouth but there was no shout in me. My voice