Death in the Hospital

And now, as I write this, I vividly recall one dying man, a consumptive, that same Mikhailov who lay almost directly across from me. Of Mikhailov himself, however, I knew little. He was still a very young man, twenty-five or so, no more, tall, thin, and of remarkably fine appearance. He lived in a special section and was strangely silent, always somehow quiet, somehow peacefully sad. It was as if he were “drying up” in prison.

At least, that is how the prisoners later described him, among whom he left a good memory. I remember only that he had beautiful eyes. He died about three in the afternoon, on a frosty and clear day. I recall how the sun pierced through the firm, slanting rays of the green, slightly frozen glass in the windows of our ward. A whole stream of them poured down upon the unfortunate man. He died not in consciousness and passed hard, slowly, for several hours in a row. As early as the morning, his eyes had already begun not to recognize those who approached him. They wanted somehow to ease his suffering, seeing that he was in great distress; he breathed with difficulty, deeply, with a rattle; his chest rose high, as if he lacked air. He threw off his blanket, all his clothes, and finally began to tear off his shirt. It was terrible to look at this long, long body, with legs and arms dried to the bone, with a sunken belly, with raised chest, with ribs standing out as distinctly as on a skeleton. On his whole body only the wooden cross with the amulet remained, and the fetters, into which, it seemed, he could now slip his withered leg. Half an hour before his death, everyone in our ward seemed to grow quiet; they began to speak in almost a whisper. Whoever walked, walked somehow noiselessly. They spoke little among themselves, about unrelated things, only occasionally glancing at the dying man, who rattled more and more. Finally, with a wandering and unsteady hand, he felt for the amulet on his chest and began to tear it off, as if even that burdened him, troubled him, weighed on him. They took off the amulet too. Ten minutes later he died. They knocked on the door to the guard to let him know. A watchman came in, stared dully at the dead man, and went off to fetch the medical assistant. The assistant, a young and good-natured fellow, arrived quickly; with rapid steps, treading loudly through the hushed ward, he walked up to the deceased and, with a particularly casual air, took his pulse, felt it, waved his hand, and left. They immediately set off to inform the guard: the criminal had been an important one, from the special section; even his death had to be acknowledged with special formalities.

While waiting for the guards, one of the prisoners suggested in a low voice that it would be good to close the dead man’s eyes. Another listened attentively, silently walked up to the dead man, and closed his eyes. Seeing the cross lying there on the pillow, he picked it up, examined it, and silently put it back around Mikhailov’s neck, and then crossed himself. Meanwhile, the dead face was stiffening; a ray of light played on it, the mouth was half open; two rows of white young teeth gleamed from beneath the thin lips stuck to the gums. Finally the guard entered, a non-commissioned officer with a sword and in a helmet, followed by two watchmen. He approached, slowing his pace more and more, looking with bewilderment at the hushed prisoners who were sternly gazing at him from all sides. Coming within a step of the dead man, he stopped as if rooted to the spot, as though awed. The completely naked, withered corpse, in fetters alone, struck him, and he suddenly unfastened the chinstrap, took off his helmet—which was not at all required—and crossed himself broadly. His was a stern, gray, soldierly face. I remember that at that very moment Chekunov, also a gray-haired old man, was standing there as well. The whole time he silently and intently looked the non-commissioned officer in the face, straight in the eye, studying his every gesture with a kind of strange attention. But their eyes met, and for some reason Chekunov’s lower lip suddenly trembled. He somehow strangely twisted it, bared his teeth, and quickly, as if by accident, nodding toward the dead man, said to the officer:

“He also had a mother!”—and walked away.

But now they began to lift the corpse, lifted it together with the cot; the straw rustled, the fetters clanked loudly to the floor in the universal silence… They picked them up. The body was carried out. Suddenly everyone spoke loudly. The officer could be heard, already in the corridor, sending someone for the blacksmith. The dead man had to be unshackled…

—Dostoevsky (from “Notes from the House of the Dead”)

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Translator’s Notes:

• Notes from the House of the Dead (Zapiski iz Myortvogo doma, 1860-1862) is Dostoevsky’s fictionalized account of his four years in a Siberian prison camp (1850-1854), where he was sent for his involvement with the utopian socialist Petrashevsky Circle.
• The “special section” (особое отделение) housed the most serious criminals, those convicted of the gravest offenses.
• The line “He also had a mother!” (Тоже ведь мать была!) is one of the most famous in Russian literature. It cuts through all distinctions of crime and punishment to assert the common humanity shared by prisoner and guard alike.
• The detail of the fetters remaining on the corpse—and the need to send for a blacksmith to unshackle the dead man—powerfully illustrates the dehumanizing bureaucracy of the prison system.
• The wooden cross with an amulet (крест с ладонкой) was a common Russian Orthodox devotional object, often containing relics or prayers.
• Tolstoy greatly admired Dostoevsky’s prison writings for their unflinching portrayal of human suffering and their glimpses of spiritual dignity amid degradation.