Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/280

 authorities and that the innocent would not be punished for the guilty except by mistake. Vodka was sold just as before and on the same system, although instead of the veterans we had sergeants. These sergeants turned out to be for the most part a good sort of sensible men who understood their position. Some of them, however, at first showed an inclination to domineer, and of course in their inexperience thought they could treat the convicts like soldiers, but soon even these realized the position. Those who were too slow in understanding had it pointed out to them by the convicts. There were some sharp encounters; for instance, they would tempt a sergeant and make him drunk, and afterwards point out to him, in their own fashion, of course, that he had drunk with them, and consequently It ended in the sergeants looking on unconcerned, or rather trying not to see, when vodka was brought in in bladders and sold. What is more, they went to the market as the veterans had done before and brought the convicts rolls, beef, and all the rest of it, that is, anything that was not too outrageous. Why all these changes were made, why convict battalions were formed, I don’t know. It happened during my last years in prison. But I had two years to spend under these new regulations.

Shall I describe all that life, all my years in prison? I don’t think so. If I were to describe in order, in succession, all that happened and all that I saw and experienced in those years, I might have written three times, four times as many chapters as I have. But such a description would necessarily become too monotonous. All the incidents would be too much in the same key, especially if, from the chapters already written, the reader has succeeded in forming a fairly satisfactory conception of prison life in the second division. I wanted to give a vivid and concrete picture of our prison and of all that I lived through in those years. Whether I have attained my object I don’t know. And, indeed, it is not quite for me to judge of it. But I am convinced that I can end my story here. Besides, I am sometimes depressed by these memories myself. And I can hardly recollect everything. The later years have somehow been effaced from my memory. Many circumstances, I am quite sure, I have entirely forgotten. I remember that all those years, which were so much alike, passed drearily, miserably. I remember that those long wearisome days were monotonous, as drops of water trickling from the roof after rain. I remember