Notes from a Dead House (Vintage Classics)

by Fyodor Dostoevsky

A prisoner is greedy for money to the point of convulsions, to a darkening of the mind, and if he does indeed throw it away like wood chips when he carouses, he does it for something he considers on a higher level than money. What is higher than money for a prisoner? Freedom, or at least the dream of freedom. And prisoners are great dreamers. I will say something about that later, but while I’m at it, believe me, I have seen men exiled for twenty years who would quite calmly say to me such phrases as “Just wait, God grant I’ll finish my term, and then …” The whole meaning of the word “prisoner” is a man with no will; but in wasting money, he is acting by his own will. In spite of any brands, fetters, and the hateful palings of the prison that screen him off from God’s world and close him in like a beast in a cage—he can get hold of some vodka, which is a fearfully forbidden pleasure, treat himself to a bit of philandering, sometimes (though not always) bribe his immediate overseers, the invalid soldier and even the sergeant, to look the other way while he violates law and discipline; to top it all off, he can even display his bravado before them, and a prisoner loves terribly to display his bravado, that is, to show off before his comrades, and even persuade himself, at least for a time, that he has much more freedom and power than it may seem—in short, he can carouse, brawl, reduce somebody to dust, and prove to him that he can do all this, that it is all “in our own hand...