CHAPTER V.
PRISON LIFE.
Mostowski, on leaving our prison, had promised me the influence of his lady, and every possible endeavour to snatch me, at least, from the prison in which I was, and to obtain permission to remove me to that in which he was himself. Eight or ten days after he left, he sent me a few books. With what eagerness did I look for the place marked with the point of a pin, and what was my joy when I found it! With what impatience did I wait the evening and the candle, to be able to read what he had written At last, the long wished for light arrived; my servant, who was in the secret, amused the soldiers, and whilst the latter had their backs turned to me, I dexterously took the marked leaf, and passed it several times over the flame. The red letters appeared, but, alas! they told me sad news. My friend informed me that his lady had obtained, after many entreaties, and much trouble, permission to see him twice for a quarter of an hour, but always in the presence of two officers, appointed ad hoc: that he had, however, found means to write now and then to her; that she had laboured with all the zeal, which friendship only can exert, to rescue me from the prison in which I was, and to alleviate my position as much as possible, but that she was answered, that if my revolutionary offences were not greater than those of other prisoners, my personal hatred towards the Empress, the insulting speeches which I had made in the Diet against her, my satirical talking of her, and, in fine, my animosity against all the Poles attached to Russia, deserved even greater severities than those I endured. Mostowski, for fear of grieving me too much, added nothing to what I have just said; but when we were free, he told me that Samoilow, after having enumerated all the complaints of the Russians against me, passed sentence on me as follows: “Let no one speak to me of Niemcewicz again, for to speak of him in the presence of the Empress, is to spoil the cause of all the Poles.” Mostowski's note touched me deeply; I saw that there was no hope for me during the life-time of an Empress who persecuted me so severely. The event proved how far I was right in my supposition. My only consolation was in the reflection, that the same offences, for which they exercised so many severities towards me, were so many titles to the esteem of all honest men. I had spoken against the Empress with vehemence and bitterness; but how could I speak with respect of her, who, with gaiety in her heart, took pleasure in loading my country with all sorts of evil, and finished at last by annihilating it? Could I like, could I flatter her favourites, who were the accomplices, and often the authors of all those atrocities? As a representative of the nation, could I spare the opulent traitors who united themselves openly with the enemies of my country,—nay, was I not even obliged to persecute them with all the indignation which crime inspires? I suffered much, it is true; but I am so strongly persuaded of the uprightness of my conduct, that if the same events were to take place again, I should not act otherwise; not from obstinacy, but because it appears to me the only course worthy of an honest man and a good citizen.
All the Polish prisoners were certainly flattered with the hope of approaching enlargement, either because it was intended to release them after some time, or from some compassion left in the hearts of our guards. I alone had been excepted, and they seemed to wish to deprive me of hope. I endeavoured, therefore, to arm myself with all my courage, and to fill up my time in the best manner I could. But, in spite of all that, the hours dragged slowly on and appeared centuries; the nights, especially, were cruel. The want of exercise, an unwholesome atmosphere, and, above all, continual mental agitation, deprived me almost constantly of sleep. Stretched upon my bed, I counted sadly the hours and quarters struck by the fortress clock; this music became intolerable to me; I would have a thousand times preferred silence. In summer, the melancholy tunes which the soldiers sang upon the ramparts of the fortress, sunk me in pleasing sadness; but the very snoring of my Francis and the corporal would have prevented me from sleeping, in every season, had I even been much inclined.
The other prisoners had only one soldier for their guard; as a very flattering distinction, I had two in my room. It is true, however, that the corporal could sleep, and that the soldier only was obliged to watch me. When I became acquainted with my guards, I asked them why they watched me so strictly, even during the night, and when the prison was bolted on every side. “That you may not play any trick to your soul,” was their answer. Ah! it is in the silence and darkness of night, that the imagination of a poor prisoner works most actively; being deprived of all natural and possible means of escaping, he desires impossible ones. How many times during these awful and sleepless nights I wished for the days of miracles and fairies! How often I longed to be able to render myself invisible, and to transfer myself where I pleased. By these means how I would frame plans for freeing Poland; how I would achieve our liberation, and punish that abominable Catherine, rendering her a hundred-fold the evils which she had made my unhappy country endure. Towards morning exhausted nature regained her rights, and I slept until seven o'clock; then I dressed myself, combed my beard, washed it repeatedly with cold water, and breakfasted. If it was the day on which I expected books from my friend Mostowski, with what impatience I clung to my window to see the corporal passing who should bring me my parcel. I was obliged, however, to wait two or three hours until the subaltern officer had examined all the leaves, one after another. But I was quite easy on that score, the small point of the pin being as imperceptible as the letters written in sympathetic ink.
They brought me once the complete works of Bernardin de Saint Pierre, with the exception of the first volume. I insisted that they should give me it, but they tried to evade my request. Two, three hours passed; no book. At length the officer brought it; “Tell me,” said I frankly, taking it, “why have you detained this volume?” “There was something written in it,” replied he, “and I have orders not to give you such a book. Being unable to make out the writing, I sent it to Alexander-Siemianowicz, the Inspector of the prison, who also finding the sentence unintelligible, took the book to Procurator General Samoilow's, but he understood it no better, and this increased his suspicion.” In short, the book passed through the hands of many great personages of the empire, who all agreed that the sentence must be written in a mysterious language, and as they at last remembered that the old metropolitan Bishop of St. Petersburg was a learned philologer, they sent him the cabalistic writing; and it was he who at last passed the definitive sentence in this matter, declaring that the words in question were written in a known language, and that they contained nothing dangerous to the Gracious Sovereign of all the Russias. Being anxious to know what it was that could so long puzzle the learned and the great of the realm, I took the book, opened it, and found to my great surprize the following words: “Ex libris Stanislai Sokolnicki!” For the first time since my imprisonment I laughed, and laughed heartily. This then is the empire where, according to Voltaire, the arts and sciences had taken refuge! I return to my dismal diary.
During a long time, books were my only occupation, as they gave me neither pen nor ink. I will try to recollect those which I read, during all my long captivity:—
| Histoire Générale des Voyages | 24 vols. |
| Condillac, I think | 26 |
| Œuvres de Bernardin de Saint-Pierre | 6 |
| Œuvres de Charles Bonnet | 10 |
| Ferguson's History of Rome, in 4° | 2 |
| Hume's History of England | 8 |
| Pope's Works | 8 |
| Swift | 8 |
| Odyssée d’Homère | l |
| Wealth of Nations, by Smith | 5 |
| Plutarch | 15 |
| Horace | 2 |
| Virgil | 2 |
| Ovid | 3 |
| Voyage de Coxe | 4 |
| Voyage auxiles Pelew, in-4° | l |
| Voyage du Capitaine Bligh | 1 |
| Voyage du Capitaine Dixon | 2 |
| Romans de Voltaire | 3 |
| Other Novels, about | 20 |
| Darwin's Works | 2 vols. |
| Watson's History of Philip the Second | 2 |
| Sterne | 3 |
| Monthly Catalogue | 10 |
Other works, of which I do not remember the titles
|
50 |
| Total | 218 vols. |
My companions in captivity having money at their disposal, were able to furnish themselves amply with books, and to lend them to me; their number, however, for a lonely man, shut up during two years, was not, as may be seen, very considerable. It may be thought, perhaps, that a man, sheltered from every kind of distraction, ought to derive much more benefit from his reading than he who lives in the world; but that does not seem to be the case, except when retirement is voluntary. When it is forced, when the mind is restless, the memory disturbed, and the attention fixed always on our sufferings, reading is not sufficiently enjoyed, and only indifferently profitable. I should, however, be ungrateful, if I did not confess that in books I found my greatest resource and comfort, during the time of my captivity.
At length, after a few months, the use of pens, ink, and paper, was allowed to me. Though I had made it a rule to confine myself strictly to translations, still my heart, overflowing with so many dismal associations, arising from my own situation, and still more from that of my unhappy country, I wrote three Elegies; the first on the battle of Maciejowice; the second, on my journey to St Petersburg; and the third, on our prison and the disasters of Poland. I took for my motto this verse of Ovid:
“Flebilis est status meus uti flebile carmen.”
These three Elegies contained nothing offensive to our tyrants, and were written with my left hand, for the right one withered perceptibly, and I had no strength in its fingers. If I had indulged my own private feelings, I would have written very strong things, but the consequences which I knew would have followed this, and the experience acquired by misfortune, deterred me at the very time when this desire prompted me. I returned then to my first idea of occupying myself only with translations, and, accordingly, I translated into Polish: the Chaumière Indienne by Bernardin de St. Pierre; Johnson's Rasselas, Plutarch's Life of Cato of Utica, Pope's Rape of the Lock, Voltaire's Ce qui plaît aux Dames, and Racine's Tragedy Athalie. I began afterwards a Polish novel, under the title of Bielawski’s[1] Memoirs, of which I finished only two parts; I wrote nearly twenty fables in verse, and a tale in Swift's style, called the Cupboard. The latter was a satire against the foolish ambition and licentious life of the Empresses, but I soon burnt it. Lastly, I wrote an Eclogue between Russian shepherds, perhaps the strongest piece of irony and burlesque that my brain had ever brought forth. After my release, I gave those manuscripts to my friends Marshal Potocki and Mostowski; a part of them remained also in the hands of Madame Dzialynska, and on my arrival in America, I found among my papers only the rough sketch of my translation of Pope's Rape of the Lock.[2]
A few months before I was set at liberty, Makarow allowed me to use a lead pencil, and to draw; but not being permitted to have a pen-knife, I was obliged, whenever my pencil became blunt, to give it to the corporal to mend. One may imagine how tedious and troublesome this was; I bye and bye got a knife from Kapostas, which, having hidden carefully, I used only when my soldiers were out of my room. Although I had a taste for drawing, I had never an opportunity of improving in that delightful accomplishment. In prison, the weakness of my right hand, which trembled excessively, rendered my drawings yet worse, and more rough, but still it was an agreeable pastime for a prisoner.
I never dined before four o'clock, consequently for the most part by candle-light. They sent for my dinner to Orlow's palace, on the other side of the river, whither General Kosciuszko had been removed; it was always brought frozen, and it required a long time to warm it in the casemates. The Empress, who was liberal even in her cruelties, had said, that as our expenses were defrayed by her, she wished that we should be provided for sumptuously. This was an excellent opportunity for the officers, who were concerned, to defraud the treasury in a most scandalous manner. Every month the bills they made up amounted to I do not know how many thousand roubles. We should have lived like princes; we did not, however; but I must confess that we fared as gentlemen who were very well off: our dinner was composed of soup, boiled beef, entrée, roast-beef, pastry, and a bottle of wine or porter: it was much for prisoners. But do we think of good cheer when we have no liberty? As for myself. I cared so little for it, that when the communication was interrupted, in consequence of the state of the river, and they gave us herrings, cheese, and beer, I scarcely noticed any difference. I ate very little; so did my servant; and our portions were then devoured by the officer and his soldiers. They helped me to meat cut in large pieces, which, as I had neither knife nor fork, I was obliged to tear with my fingers. My moustache and beard annoyed me much during my meals. After dinner, they left us long in darkness: and I employed this time in taking a walk. I had chosen the diagonal line across my room as the longest, being about eight small paces. I walked absorbed in melancholy thought. I often intended to walk so many thousand paces: I counted them, but nearly always erred in my calculation, and fell again into my reveries. By dint of walking in the same diagonal line, I impressed on it, in the course of two years, a path which was nearly a quarter of an inch below the level of the floor. The sight of this must, I think, have caused my successor to tremble.
During fine summer nights, I sat at the window, and there, with my head leaning upon the bars, and my eyes fixed upon a part of the firmament, which was visible between the prison and the walls of the fortress, I remained whole hours lost in the sweetest reveries; and whilst my body was enchained in that dismal prison, my thought took its flight, and wandered from one end of the universe to the other. I saw the places so dear to my memory, Italy, that country which I had lately left to join the army, the tombs, the majestic ruins of Rome, the embalmed villas of Florence, that beautiful city, where, amidst the master-pieces of art, I passed days without cloud, days pure as the sky of that happy clime. At another time, afflicting recollections snatched me from these sweet illusions: my country, whose prosperity had, during many years, been the only object of my labours and exertions, now torn and divided; my father, my kindred and friends, perhaps as ignorant of my fate as I was of theirs, were present to my mind, such reflections plunged me into melancholy, and often wrung tears from my eyes. One night, when abandoned to my own thoughts, I was sitting up longer than usual, I heard from afar sounds of wind instruments. I supposed, at first, that it was a mere illusion; but by degrees those sounds seemed to approach and to become more distinct; I heard, at last, the serenade from Don Juan, the opera which was so often performed at Warsaw; then I heard again the sounds at a distance, then they died away entirely, and every thing fell again into silence. It may be imagined what recollections this music awoke, what sensations it excited in a prisoner who had scarcely heard a human voice for two years.
My health, before my imprisonment pretty robust, was much affected by want of air and exercise, and by the sorrows I had experienced. I had attacks of weakness and giddiness, with continual qualms, profuse perspiration perspiration over all my body, and continual fever and thirst. I drank incessantly, which still increased my illness and weakened my stomach. From this time I must date the origin of a cruel malady, which has poisoned since so many moments of my life, I mean nervous affection. I asked for a surgeon; they sent me a young empty coxcomb, who felt my pulse, and whilst strengthening medicines were necessary, prescribed herbs. I entreated them that they would allow me to go out with a soldier for a walk, at least for a quarter of an hour, but they refused.
This, as well as every other severity to which I was subjected, made me often reflect how barbarous the conduct of certain governments is towards state prisoners, that class of unfortunate individuals, who, deprived of the protection of laws, and the ordinary forms of justice, are pursued, arrested, and condemned at the arbitrary will, suspicion, nay, even caprice, of one sole being who has unlimited power. At the same time accuser and judge, after having gratified his vengeance, and deprived man of liberty, his most valuable blessing, should he still tyrannize over him, and destroy him in his prison slowly inch by inch? Has he not sufficiently punished by confinement, and by being deprived of the means of disturbing the community, or provoking the vengeance of the tyrant? Has he not done enough for his own security? If the prisoner is guilty, is it by torment that he can be corrected? Ah! how little these despots know human nature! It is not by exasperating man that he can be reformed. The tenderness of compassion, the voice of friendship and mildness; these are the means to bring man back to the path of virtue, from which he has had the misfortune to be led astray. But how much more odious those cruelties become when he who exercises them can appeal neither to civil nor international law in the indictment of his victim. Those famous state reasons, the argument so powerful by which Samoilow and his like cut short all the remonstances that were made to them, could neither justify the oppression that we experienced, nor even, considering things from their point of view, prove the least necessity for it. Supposing Poland, torn in tatters, and that these, stitched to three different empires, and guarded by numerous armies, did not appear to them sufficiently sheltered from our intrigues, state reasons might bid them apprehend us, and shut us up in a fortress to prevent us from escaping; but what reason, what necessity had they for isolating and tormenting us, each separately, for depriving us even of the consolation of suffering together? Could seven prisoners, disarmed, crippled, weakened by sufferings and sorrows, and surrounded with guards, be dangerous in their prison? Could they conspire against the Gracious Sovereign, or excite disturbances in either her old or new dominions? Would the safety of the Empress and her loyal subjects be compromised if a prisoner had the liberty of breathing fresh air, and seeing the daylight for a quarter of an hour? I ask a thousand pardons of the immortal Catherine's eulogists, but in the little cruelties which she exercised over us, I see nothing either great or immortal: it was the mere spite of an old woman, equally vain and vindictive.[3]
It must be remarked, that Russia was the only country where a prisoner was refused even the small favour of breathing fresh air. Every prisoner in the Bastille was allowed to walk during an hour upon the terrace. I have seen, in Newgate, villains, assassins, condemned to die upon the scaffold, walking during whole days in the court of the prison, and talking with their parents, relatives, and friends. Nay, even Robespierre, one of those monsters of cruelty which heaven vomits in its wrath, allowed his victims to breathe fresh air, and left them the comfort of being visited and consoled in their prison by their wives, children, and relatives. It was reserved to Catherine to improve on the cruelties of Robespierre. It was chiefly this want of exercise and fresh air which undermined my health, depressed my spirits, rendered study, reading, and I may say even my existence, burdensome. I quote only one instance, which will prove how dreadful my condition was. One day, after dinner, being in this state of depression and heaviness, and unable either to read or write, I threw myself upon my bed and fell asleep. When I awoke, I heard the clock striking six. Well, the idea of having spent two hours without feeling the weight of my chains, of having, in oblivion of my misfortunes, diminished by two hours the time destined for my sufferings, was enough to fill my heart with joy. Necessity is the mother of invention. Conscious that exercise was by all means indispensable to me, I fell upon the idea of making myself a ball for playing. I picked up, accordingly, all the hair which fell in handfuls from my head, added to it that of my beard, and my servant made me a ball of it; every morning I played with it for an hour, so as to be tired, and to perspire copiously over all my body; I then changed my linen and reposed. It is, perhaps, to this school-boy exercise that I am indebted, not for having borne my captivity with less difficulty, but even for having survived it.
The kindness with which I treated my guards, and the compassion I showed for their condition, which was almost as much to be pitied as my own, won me, at last, their confidence and affection. One of my sufferings in this prison was to see every day the cruel treatment to which these poor fellows were condemned. Paul Iwanowicz, their commanding officer, was a brutal fellow, uniting the vices of a barbarian with those of an upstart. A peasant by birth, he had risen to the rank of Praporszczyk, or ensign, by an advantageous marriage which he had made with the coachman's daughter of the Procurator-General. The good fortune of being a Praporszczyk seemed to him so unexpected, so inconceivable, so much above all his expectations, that to convince himself that it was not an illusion or a dream, he exercised continually the privileges of his rank, which consisted in having the power to flog his poor soldiers at his pleasure. Hardly a single day elapsed without my seeing these horrible punishments; they took place before the casemates, opposite my window: they stripped the poor fellow of his uniform, and whilst the Praporszczyk held his watch in his hand, a serjeant and a corporal struck him in turn, with sticks as thick as a man's finger. Often the shirt of the unfortunate delinquent was saturated with blood. Oppressed with grief, I turned my eyes and left the window, but the cries of these poor fellows followed me, and rent my heart. The punishment is not measured in Russia by the number of blows, but by the time. They flog a quarter of an hour, twenty minutes, half an hour, and sometimes more. Anybody except a Russian would breathe his last under such a torture.
I often remonstrated with the Praporszczyk upon his barbarous conduct; I used all my arguments, and endeavoured to move his humanity and compassion, but it was preaching to a deaf man. He always answered me, that it was the custom, that he was obliged to do as others did, and that, having been a private, he had received himself thousands of strokes, and knew by experience that it did not do so much harm as was believed. Seeing that all my arguments were ineffectual, and knowing that he was superstitious, I tried to alarm his conscience. “Remember Paul Iwanowicz,” said I once to him, “that the Author of the universe, the Judge of all we do here, the great St. Nicholas (here he bowed,) records all our good and bad actions, that he rewards a hundred fold the former, but also punishes a hundred fold the latter. On the terrible day of judgment he will ask you to account for the tears and blood you have caused to be shed. You know what awaits reprobate souls; think of the punishments, think of the torments which are reserved for them in the depths of hell.” He became thoughtful, and answered: Chtozh dielat! Chtozh dielat! What shall I do! what shall I do! It seemed, however, that this last argument was not without effect; the flogging for some time became less frequent and less cruel, but this relaxation was of short continuance, and he soon commenced punishing again in the most barbarous manner. This man was naturally bad, and took pleasure in tormenting others. He robbed the prisoners, or rather the public treasury, in everything that passed through his hands, he took delight in retaining our books, and playing all sorts of tricks. The soldiers hated him as well as the prisoners; those who were with me, and who had been left for more than twelve months without being relieved, perceiving my discretion, and the interest which I took in their fate, came, during the absence of the Praporszczyk, to pour their complaints and their bitter sorrows into my bosom. They had been taken, for the most part, from the remotest provinces of the empire, were married, and had children; most of them, seized and enlisted soon after marriage, had not seen their wives and children for many years, and did not even hear from them, or at least very seldom. We had our mutual complaints. I endeavoured to console them, and as I had no money, I gave them my clothes, linen, everything that was not indispensable to me. Nothing inspires greater confidence, nothing links men more closely than common misfortune! Everything that they learnt, they communicated to me secretly. I even prevailed on them to take my two notes to General Kosciuszko, in which I described to him my situation, and the almost unprecedented severities to which I was subjected. I requested him to ask the Empress that I might be removed to his prison, being sure that, in consequence of the great regard which she had for him, his request would have every chance of success. He answered me the first time with many protestations of friendship, but without saying whether he would do what I proposed to him, and finally begged me not to write to him, lest I should compromise him. The second time, more than six months after, he only ordered his negro to tell me, verbally, that he had received my note.
- ↑ Bielawski, a poor versifier, who lived under the reign of Stanislaus-Augustus, was an object of ridicule and inexhaustible pleasantry among his contemporaries.
- ↑ I remember the volume of Pope, containing this delightful poem, was sent to me in prison, with a notice that I could not keep it more than three days. I immediately took a fancy to translate it, and resolved therefore to copy the whole English poem, and then to translate from this copy.
- ↑ General Kosciuszko did not endure the severe treatment which they had exercised towards us. As they wished to consider him rather as an innocent and passive instrument, than as a ringleader of the revolution, they pitied him for having been the victim of dangerous heads, such as ours. They paid him every possible attention; he had, first, for his prison, the house of the commander of the fortress, and then was removed to Orlow's palace. He had a carriage at his command, and went out when he wished, accompanied by a Russian officer; he took airings in the garden in a rolling chair, and, at last, they gave him a master-turner to teach him turning, for which he had taken a liking. Of all the Polish prisoners he was the only one who was a favourite of the Empress.