Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/277

 and when he could, told us all sorts of news. Politics was what interested him most.

Besides M., T., B., and Z., there were two quite young men who had been sent for brief terms, boys of little education, but honest, simple, and straightforward. A third, A-tchukovsky, was quite a simpleton, and there was nothing special about him. But a fourth, B-m, a middle-aged man, made a very disagreeable impression upon all of us. I don’t know how he came to be one of the political prisoners, and, indeed, he denied all connexion with them himself. He had the coarse soul of a petty huckster, and the habits and principles of a shopkeeper who had grown rich by cheating over halfpence. He was entirely without education, and took no interest in anything but his trade. He was a painter, and a first-rate one, magnificent. Soon the authorities heard of his talent, and all the town began wanting B-m to paint their walls and ceilings. Within two years he had painted almost all the officials’ houses. Their owners paid him out of their own pockets, and so he was not at all badly off. But the best of it was that his comrades, too, began to be sent to work with him. Two who went out with him continually, learnt the trade, too, and one of them, T-zhevsky, became as good a painter as he was himself. Our major who lived in a government house himself, sent for B-m in his turn, and told him to paint all the walls and ceilings. Then B-m did his utmost: even the Governor-General’s house was not so well painted. It was a tumble-down, very mangy-looking, one-storey wooden house; but the interior was painted as though it were a palace, and the major was highly delighted He rubbed his hands, and declared that now he really must get married: “with such a house one must have a wife,” he added quite seriously. He was more and more pleased with B-m, and through him with the others who worked with him. The work lasted a whole month. In the course of that month the major quite altered his views of the political prisoners, and began to patronize them. It ended by his summoning Z. one day from the prison.

“Z.,” said he, “I wronged you. I gave you a flogging for nothing, I know it. I regret it. Do you understand that? I, I, I—regret it!”

Z. replied that he did understand it.

“Do you understand that I, I, your commanding officer have sent for you, to ask you your forgiveness. Do you feel that? What are you beside me? A worm! Less than a worm: you