Radical Shadows Page 11

  Back in Paris, I also learn that Soviet forces have massed on the Polish border and are threatening to invade. War, too, between Iraq and Iran, undoubtedly over the oil route.

  Late summer, the sky is blue, transparent, God may be looking at me.

  The Life Sentence

  A Missing Passage from “The House of the Dead”

  Fyodor Dostoevsky

  —Translated from Russian by Peter Constantine

  TRANSLATOR’S NOTE

  FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY’S Notes from the House of the Dead is a major work of psychological insight, a rich tapestry of the inner life struggles of a procession of characters banished to the harsh conditions of a nineteenth-century Siberian prison camp. Fiction and memoir are interwoven, insofar as Dostoevsky himself experienced life in such a prison camp from 1850 to 1854.

  “The Life Sentence” was not incorporated in the published text of Notes from the House of the Dead. It was found among the papers of Alexander Milyukov, a friend of the Dostoevsky family, and was first published in the complete works of Dostoevsky, Polnoe Sobranie Sochinenii (Leningrad, 1972). It appears here for the first time in English.

  IN OUR PRISON barracks, Fyodor Mikhailovitch said, there was a young prisoner, a passive, quiet and uncommunicative man. I kept my distance from him for a long time—I didn’t know how long he had been at hard labor, or why he had landed in the special section reserved for men convicted of the worst crimes. He had a good reputation with the prison authorities because of his exemplary conduct, and the convicts liked him for his gentleness and servility. We gradually became closer, and one day, as we were returning from labor, he told me the story behind his exile. He had been a serf in a province near Moscow, and this is how he ended up in Siberia.

  “Our village, Fyodor Mikhailovitch,” he began, “is big and prosperous. Our squire was a widower, not yet old—I wouldn’t say he was evil, but befuddled and debauched with the female sex I would say. We had no love for him. Anyway, I decided to get married: I needed a woman to run my house, and there was a girl I loved. We came to an understanding, we got permission from the manor, and they married us. And as me and my bride left the church and were going home, we went by the squire’s estate, and suddenly six or seven of his men came at us, grabbed my wife and dragged her off to the manor. I ran after them, but some men threw themselves on me. I yelled, I fought, but they tied my hands with straps and I couldn’t break loose. Well, so they made off with my wife and dragged me to my hut, and threw me all tied up onto my sleeping bench, with two guards outside. I tossed all night, and late next morning they brought my bride back and untied me. I got up, and she threw herself on the table, crying with misery. ‘Don’t torment yourself!’ I tell her. ‘It is not your fault that you fell into sin!’ From that day on I kept thinking and thinking how I could repay the squire for fondling my wife. I sharpened my ax in the shed, so sharp you could slice bread with it, and carried it hidden so no one would see it. It might well be that the other peasants saw me hanging around the estate and realized I was up to no good, but no one cared. No one had much love for our squire. But for a long time I couldn’t get at him—he was with guests or with his lackeys. It was very hard. And I felt a stone in my heart that I couldn’t pay him back for his evil deed. The bitterest thing of all was seeing my wife’s misery. Well, so one evening I was walking behind the manor garden. I look—and there’s the squire, walking down the path all alone, not seeing me. The garden fence was a low balustrade with a trellis. I let the squire walk ahead a ways, and then jumped over it. I pulled out my ax, stepped on the grass so he wouldn’t hear me and crept up behind him. I got really close, and grabbed the ax with both hands. I wanted the squire to see who had come for his blood, so I coughed on purpose. He turned, saw it was me, and I threw myself at him, bringing the ax down on his head … Wham! Here you go! This is for having loved her! Brains and blood came spattering out. He fell without a gasp. And I went to the police station and declared that this and that had happened. So they grabbed me and beat me and sent me here with a twelve-year sentence.”

  “But you’re in the special section for convicts with life sentences!”

  “The life sentence at hard labor, Fyodor Mikhailovitch, is for a completely different matter!”

  “What was it?”

  “I finished off the captain!”

  “What captain?”

  “The one in charge of the chain gang. It was clearly his fate. I was marching in a chain gang—that was the summer after I had settled things with the squire. It was in the province of Perm. The chain gang was huge. The day was blistering hot and the march went on and on. We were collapsing in the baking sun, we were worn to death. The soldiers in the convoy were barely moving their feet, while we, who weren’t used to the chains, suffered terribly. Not everyone was strong—some were old, others hadn’t had a crust of bread in their mouths all day. On this march no villagers came to the roadside to give us even a bite to eat. All we got was some water once or twice. How we made it the Lord only knows. So when we arrived at one of the camps some of the men just fell to the ground. I can’t say I was finished, just really hungry. On forced marches in those days the chain gangs were fed. But here, we look and nothing’s set up yet. And the prisoners start saying: ‘What! They’re not going to feed us? We have no more strength, we’re skin and bones! We’re sitting here, we’re lying here, and no one’s even throwing us a piece of food!’ My feelings were hurt. I was hungry, but felt even worse for the old and the sick. ‘Will we be getting some food soon?’ we ask the soldiers.—‘You have to wait!’ they tell us. ‘We haven’t got the order yet.’ So tell me, Fyodor Mikhailovitch, was this fair? A clerk was walking through the barracks and I said to him: ‘Why don’t they give us food?’—‘You can wait!’ he answers. ‘You won’t die!’—‘But look,’ I tell him. ‘Everyone is at the end of their rope, marching all day in this heat! Give us something to eat now!’—‘We can’t!’ he says. ‘The captain has guests, and they’re having breakfast. When they’re finished, I guess he’ll give the order!’—‘Will that be soon?’—‘When he’s eaten his fill and picked his teeth, then he’ll come out!’—‘What’s this?’ I say. ‘He’s resting, and we’re dying like dogs?’—‘Hey! How dare you raise your voice to me!’—‘I’m not raising my voice to you I answer, ‘I’m just saying that we have sick men who can barely move!’—‘You’re trying to start a brawl! I’m going to tell the captain!’—‘I’m not trying to start a brawl!’ I tell him. ‘And you can report to the captain whatever you want!’ Some of the prisoners began complaining and someone started swearing at the officers. The clerk flew into a rage. ‘You’re a troublemaker!’ he shouts at me. ‘The captain will take care of you!’ He left. I was seized by a fury that I cannot describe. I knew this would end badly. I had a pocket knife for which I had traded my oVeralls with a convict in Nizhni Novgorod, and I don’t remember now how I slid it from under my shirt into my sleeve. I look up, and I see an officer come out of the barracks, his mug all red, his eyes looking like they’re about to pop—he must have been drinking. And that damn clerk behind him. ‘Where’s the troublemaker!’ the captain shouted, and came right at me. ‘So you’re the one making trouble?’—‘No, sir, I’m not making trouble. It’s just that I’m worried for the others—do we have to starve to death? Neither the Lord nor the Czar has decreed it should be so.’ He flies at me, shouting: ‘How dare you, you nobody! I’ll show you what’s decreed for scum like you! Call the soldiers!’ And I have my pocket knife in my sleeve and hold it ready. ‘I’ll teach you a lesson!’ he shouts.—‘Sir, you’ll teach me? There’s nothing you can teach me! I don’t need your teaching to know myself!’ I told him that to spite him, to get him even angrier so he would come closer. He won’t be able to hold back, I think to myself. Well, I was right. He clenched his fists and ran at me. I jumped and whammed my knife into his belly and slashed it right up to his throat. He keeled over like a log. That was that. His unfairness towards the convicts had re
ally maddened me. It was for this captain, Fyodor Mikhailovitch, that I ended up in this special section for life.”

  Antonia Pozzi, 1932

  Twelve Poems

  Antonia Pozzi

  —Translated from Italian with an afterword by Lawrence Venuti

  LYING

  Now the gentle

  annihilation

  swimming backwards

  sun in the face—brain

  steeped in red

  through tight lids—.

  That evening in bed

  the same

  position the dreamy

  bright pupils

  dilated drink

  the blanc

  soul

  of night.

  —Santa Margherita, 19 June 1929

  OMEN

  The last light fades

  on the poplars’

  clasped hands—

  the shadow

  shivers with cold and

  waiting

  behind us

  slipped around our arms

  making

  us

  more alone—

  The last light falls

  on linden branches—

  in the sky

  the poplars’

  fingers

  ringed with stars—

  Something drops

  from above

  toward the shivering shadow—

  something cuts the dark

  a gleam—may be

  something not yet—

  someone who will be

  tomorrow—

  a creature

  of our grief—

  —Milano, 15 November 1930

  SWOON

  November didn’t

  return:

  but at noon

  the sparrows

  cry

  on the soaked branches

  as if wishing

  night

  to fall.

  Somebody forgot

  to fix

  the weights

  in the clock:

  the bird says

  cuckoo

  just twice

  stops on its porch

  to watch

  the pendulum

  jerks

  to a halt.

  Now

  I can’t tell

  time.

  —21 February 1935

  ABSENCE

  I sought your face

  behind gates.

  But the house

  was anchored in a gulf

  of silences

  the curtains fell

  limp between

  empty arcades,

  dead sails.

  Offshore

  the lake

  fled

  debouched

  from the unreal mountains,

  gray-green waves

  on the stairs

  withdrawing

  from the stone.

  In a slow drift

  beneath the rapt

  sky,

  the boat

  vast

  and pale:

  we eyed

  the red circle growing

  on the shore

  azaleas,

  mute clusters.

  —Monate, 5 May 1935

  FLIGHT

  The narcissus leans

  a fresh face

  into the breeze.

  Child’s hands

  abrupt

  hedges

  grasp at gates.

  Breath-blown

  in my run:

  glimpses of things

  rubbished—useless

  bridges—deafening

  abyss

  devouring me.

  —10 May 1935

  THE HEIGHTS

  Wisteria bloomed

  slowly

  over us.

  The last boat

  crossed the mountain lake.

  At dusk

  I gathered purple petals

  in my apron

  when the gate banged

  the way back plunged

  into darkness.

  —11 May 1935

  OCTOBER

  This nocturne

  liquid

  over the pebbles

  collapse

  of a dead season.

  Languorous

  coal fires in the mountains

  and a weak gleam

  freezes

  in the fountain.

  Dawn eyes

  the last

  flocks

  descending

  dogs, horses

  a faint dust

  over the ridge

  discomposed.

  —Pastuio, 30 September 1935

  THAW

  Now the voided

  road

  suspends us

  from its lights:

  borne by airy graves,

  while words

  avoid

  distant waters

  down below.

  Tomorrow

  we will reach a sluice:

  melting

  wary

  of cracks,

  snow.

  Easing

  down my face

  regains

  its warmth:

  when

  the soft soil flowers

  in me

  the grace

  of your lips.

  —10 December 1935

  ENVOI

  The crags rose

  winged

  with terror

  on the sleigh’s

  great flight:

  and the red sun sank

  in a horse’s shadow

  over the ridge

  of fir trees.

  Then faint

  guitar chords,

  choruses

  soft, broken

  beyond the peaks

  raced with the sunset

  over the hollow

  tinkling canter.

  At evening

  the last pink hand—

  a stone—

  beckoned above

  saluting:

  and pale

  in the violet air

  prayed to the stars.

  Slowly in the night

  the rivers

  washed me

  away.

  —Misurina, 11 January 1936

  MAY DEATH WISH

  A mountain

  cloister

  of leaves

  redeems

  the laughter

  of blue flowers.

  Stop, pale

  sun

  nail

  to the ground

  these temples

  downed

  in moss

  translate the weight

  to eternal

  vernal.

  —May 1936

  SEPTEMBER EVENING

  Snow mountain air

  fills the village

  with bells

  flings open doors

  to the gaunt

  late

  hay:

  when the children

  hang

  on the carts

  brushing the warm

  paths in the valley

  transparencies

  of bright

  houses.

  Then the winge

  reaches me

  from the shadow

  gypsies

  camped by the roads.

  —Pasturo, 13 September 1937

  PAN

  A patch of sun

  danced with me

  tepid on the brow,

  the wind still rustling

  the farthest leaves.

  He came later

  alone: the foam

  of these waves

  blood

  and a hammering of bells in the dark

  deep in the dark

  through violent whirlpools

  through silent red jabs—

  at the ripping.

  Afte
rward

  the ants stitched

  a living black thread

  in the grass

  near the hair

  and on my—

  on your

  dewy face

  a butterfly

  parted

  its wings.

  —27 February 1938

  ***

  AFTERWORD

  VERSIONS OF ANTONIA

  Antonia Pozzi was born in Milan in 1912. During the 1930s she was the friend of leading Italian poets and critics, philosophers and publishers. She wrote a thesis on Flaubert, as well as an essay on Aldous Huxley. In 1937 she began teaching, but her fragile health deteriorated. In December of 1938 her body was found on the outskirts of the city, in the snow. She had drugged herself and contracted pneumonia. She died the next day. The official report listed the cause of death as “a sudden attack.” Among her papers was found a set of notebooks that contained over three hundred poems. Written between 1929 and 1938, the poems are what she called “my secret diary.” Their existence was known only to her closest childhood friends, particularly two women to whom she sent manuscript copies.