Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/130

 one near him could help laughing. He, too, belonged to the class of comic men, but he would not be sat upon by those who despised and detested laughter, so they never abused him for being a “foolish and useless” person. He was full of fire and life. He made my acquaintance during my first days and told me that he was a kantonist and had afterwards served in the pioneers, and had even been noticed and favoured by some great personages, a fact which he still remembered with great pride. He began at once questioning me about Petersburg. He even used to read. When he came to have tea with me he at once entertained the whole ward by describing what a dressing down Lieutenant S. had given the major that morning, and sitting down beside me, he told me with a look of pleasure that the theatricals would probably come off. They were getting up theatricals in the prison for Christmas. Actors had been discovered, and scenery was being got ready by degrees. Some people in the town had promised to lend dresses for the actors, even for the female characters; they positively hoped by the assistance of an orderly to obtain an officer’s uniform with epaulettes. If only the major did not take it into his head to forbid it, as he did last year. But last Christmas he had been in a bad temper: he had lost at cards somewhere, and, besides, there had been mischief in the prison, so he had forbidden it out of spite; but now perhaps he would not want to hinder it. In short, Baklushin was excited. It was evident that he was one of the most active in getting up the performance, and I inwardly resolved on the spot that I would certainly be present. Baklushin’s simple-hearted delight that everything was going well with the theatricals pleased me. Little by little, we got into talk. Among other things he told me that he had not always served in Petersburg; that he had been guilty of some misdemeanour there and had been transferred to R., though as a sergeant in a garrison regiment.

“It was from there I was sent here,” observed Baklushin.

“But what for?” I asked.

“What for? What do you think it was for, Alexandr Petrovitch? Because I fell in love.”

“Oh well, they don’t send people here for that yet,” I retorted laughing.

“It is true,” Baklushin added, “it’s true that through that I shot a German there with my pistol. But was the German worth sending me here for, tell me that!”

“But how was it? Tell me, it’s interesting.”