Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/187

 tically, almost as a trifling inconvenience and lose all fear of it. Speaking generally, this is true. One of our convicts in the special divisions, a Kalmuck, who had been christened Alexandr or “Alexandra” as they used to call him in the prison, a queer fellow, sly, fearless and at the same time very good-natured, told me how he got through his four thousand “sticks.” He told me about it, laughing and joking, but swore in earnest that if he had not from childhood—his earliest, tenderest childhood—always been under the lash, so that his back had literally never been free from scars all the while he lived with his horde, he never could have endured the punishment. He seemed to bless his education under the lash.

“I was beaten for everything, Alexandr Petrovitch!” he told me one evening, sitting on my bed, before the candles were lighted, “for everything and nothing, whatever happened, I was beaten for fifteen years on end, as far back as I can remember, several times every day; anyone beat me who liked, so that in the end I got quite used to it.”

How he came to be a soldier I don’t know; I don’t remember, though perhaps he told me; he was an inveterate runaway and tramp. I only remember his account of how horribly frightened he was when he was condemned to four thousand “sticks” for killing his superior officer.

“I knew I should be severely punished and that perhaps I shouldn’t come out alive, and though I was used to the lash, four thousand strokes is no joke; besides, all the officers were furious with me! I knew, I knew for certain that I shouldn’t get through it, that I couldn’t stand it; I shouldn’t come out alive. First I tried getting christened; I thought maybe they’d forgive me, and though the fellows told me it would be no use, I shouldn’t be pardoned, I thought I’d try it. Anyway, they’d. have more feeling for a Christian after all. Well, they christened me and at the holy christening called me Alexandr; but the sticks remained, they did not take one off; I thought it was too bad. I said to myself: ‘Wait a bit, I’ll be a match for you all.’ And would you believe it, Alexandr Petrovitch, I was a match for them! I was awfully good at pretending to be dead, that is not being quite dead, but just on the point of expiring. I was brought out for punishment; I was led through the ranks for the first thousand; it burnt me; I shouted. I was led back for the second thousand; well, thought I, my end is come, they’ve beaten all sense out of me; my legs were giving way, I fell on the ground;