Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/260

 entry to the kitchen, I met T., a young man of strong will and generous heart, of no great education, though he was a man of good birth. He was a great friend of B.’s. The other convicts marked him out from the rest of us “gentlemen” and had some affection for him. He was brave, manly and strong, and this was somehow apparent in every gesture.

“What are you doing, Goryanchikov,” he shouted to me, “come here!”

“But what’s the matter?”

“They are presenting a complaint, don’t you know? It won’t do them any good; who’ll believe convicts? They’ll try to find out the instigators, and, if we are there, they’ll be sure to pitch on us first as responsible for the mutiny. Remember what we came here for. They will be simply flogged and we shall be tried. The major hates us all, and will be glad to ruin us. And by means of us he’ll save himself.”

“And the convicts would be glad to betray us,” added M., as we went into the kitchen.

“You may be sure they wouldn’t spare us,” T. assented. There were a great many other people, some thirty, besides us “gentlemen” in the kitchen. They had all remained behind, not wishing to take part in the complaint—some from cowardice, others from a full conviction of the uselessness of any sort of complaint. Among them was Akim Akimitch, who had a natural and inveterate hostility to all such complaints, as destructive of morality and official routine. He said nothing, but waited. in perfect tranquillity for the end of the affair, not troubling himself as to its result, and thoroughly convinced of the inevitable triumph of discipline and the will of the authorities. Isay Fomitch was there too, looking much perplexed, and with drooping nose listening greedily and apprehensively to our conversation. He was in great anxiety. All the Poles of the peasant class were here, too, with their compatriots of the privileged class. There were some other timid souls, people who were always silent and dejected. They had not dared to join the others, and were mournfully waiting to see how it would end. There were also some morose and always sullen convicts who were not of a timid character. They stayed behind from obstinacy, and a contemptuous conviction that it was all foolishness, and that nothing but harm would come of it. But yet I fancy they felt somewhat awkward now, they did not look perfectly at their ease. Though they knew they were perfectly right about the