Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/48

 brave heart into exile, for in his blindness he considered it “martyrdom for the faith!” After spending some time with him, one could not help asking oneself how this meek old man, as gentle as a child, could have been a rebel. Several times I talked to him of “the faith”; he would never yield an inch in his convictions, but there was no trace of anger or of hatred in his replies. And yet he had destroyed a church and did not deny doing it. It seemed that from his convictions he must have considered his action and his suffering for it a glorious achievement. But, however closely I watched him and studied him, I never detected the faintest sign of pride or vanity in him. There were other Old Believers in the prison, mostly Siberians. They were very well-educated people, shrewd peasants, great students of the Bible who quibbled over every letter, and great dialecticians in their own way; they were a crafty, conceited, aggressive and extremely intolerant set. The old man was absolutely different. Though perhaps better read than they, he avoided argument. He was of a very communicative disposition. He was merry, often laughing, not with the coarse cynical laugh of the other convicts, but with a gentle candid laugh, in which there was a great deal of childlike simplicity that seemed peculiarly in keeping with his grey hair. I may be mistaken but I fancy that one can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man’s laugh before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good man. Though the old man had gained the respect of all throughout the prison, he was not in the least conceited about it. The convicts used to call him grandfather, and they never insulted him. I could partly imagine the sort of influence he must have had on his fellow believers. But in spite of the unmistakable courage with which he endured his punishment, there was also a deep inconsolable melancholy in his heart, which he tried to conceal from all. I lived in the same room with him. One night I waked up at three o’clock and heard the sound of quiet, restrained weeping. The old man was sitting on the stove (the same stove on which the Bible reader who threw the brick at the major used to pray at night). He was saying his prayers over his manuscript book. He was weeping and I could hear him saying from time to time, “Lord, do not forsake me! Lord, give me strength! My little ones, my darling little ones, I shall never see you again!” I can’t describe how sad it made me.

It was to this old man that almost all the convicts began by