The evils of the system were inherent in the theory of prison colonization, which involves the exploitation of natural resources by the use of forced labor and arbitrary standards of punishment. The prisoner becomes a statistic in the ill-kept books of statistics, and it is his fate to be- come totally demoralized, stupefied by the bureaucracy, and reduced to a state of imbecility. Again and again, as Chekhov talked with the prisoners, he seemed to be in the
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presence of madmen. They were no longer men, but witless caricatures; and the prison officials were also witless carica- tures of humanity, although chey talked suavely and grammatically about their "civilizing mission." Madmen were exploiting madmen, but two emirely differem kinds of madness were involved; and somecimes, as he attempcs co describe the two opposing forms of madness, Chekhov seems to lose hean, abandoning all hope of a society in which bureaucrats reign over prisoners. He had no partic- ular sympathy for the prisoners: they were murderers, cutthroats and arsonists, the dregs of Russia, but he had less sympathy for their guards and the officials who saw them- selves as virtuous champions of the oppressed. Toward the end of the book he indicates that the only soludon lay in the abandonmem of the penal colony, with setders from Russia taking over the colonization of the island.
While the evils of the system were obvious, it was far more difficult to suggest any workable palliatives. Since the books of statistics were ill-kept, he decided to carry out his own census. Perhaps on the basis of these new statistics— for the census was imended to include an abbreviated biog- raphy of each prisoner and setder on the island—a more liberal policy might be worked out by the authorities in St. Petersburg. General Kononovich had no objection to the census. Cards were printed on the governmem priming press, so designed that many questions could be answered by simply striking out a word or inserting a single letter in the appropriate column. It was a peculiarly modern method of inquiry and Chekhov wem to great pains to devise a suitable list of questions. Apparemly he was not permined w make a census of the prisoners in confinement, but only of the settlers who worked in gangs as forced laborers or who lived in the settlements cloned all over the island, eking out a small living from the hard soil while attempt- ing to open out the virgin land. There were various cate- gories of setders, most of them being prisoners. The cate- gory of "peasams-formerly-exiles" referred to peasants who enjoyed considerable freedom but were not yet permitted to leave the island; co them went the least onerous tasks, although they still remained under supervision. The card devised by Chekhov had twelve entries:
Settlement
No. of house
Name
Age
Religion
Birthplace
Year of arrival
Principal occupation
Literate, illiterate, educated
Married in homeland, in Sakhalin, wid-
ower, bachelor
Docs he receive assistance from the prison? Yes. No.
Chekhov claimed that in three months he filled out io,ooo of these census cards, a claim which has been re- garded with reserve by his biographers. Yet it was not an impossible number. He would go through a settlement house by house, quickly interviewing everyone he met. He rose at five o'clock in the morning and worked till late in the night, wholly immersed in his task, driven by the need to explore deeper and deeper into the heart of the mystery. The census was intended to provide necessary sociological data, but it had other uses. Armed with his census cards, he entered the huts like a man with a well-defined purpose and a semiofficial status; he was treated with respect and sometimes with awe; and to this extent the census cards constituted his disguise. What he really wanted was an ex- cuse to enter the huts without incurring suspicion. He would ask all manner of questions, not only the questions on the card. Late at night he would record what they said to him in his notebooks, trying to catch the exact tone of voice, the expressions on the faces of these people who had become the playthings of an inefficient and ludicrously in- effective administration.
In this way he spent his days, going from one hut to another, often alone, but sometimes accompanied by a prison guard with a revolver or by a prison attendant. The presence of the guard or the attendant made him important in the eyes of the prisoners, and he did nothing to dispel the impression that he was in some way connected with the administration. Sometimes he thought of himself as an impostor, gathering information under false pretenses. At other times he regarded himself as a man with a load of mischief and did not know what dangerous stratagems he might find himself contemplating. He was working so hard that his eyelids developed a tic and he blinked continually, and there were ominous headaches.
The census cards, on which he worked so carefully, have survived, and are now preserved in the Lenin Library in Moscow. His method of filling in the cards was a very simple one. He would write as little as possible, simply underlining the appropriate words on the card, entering the names of the settlers carefully, and the rest hurriedly. It could not have taken him more than a few minutes to ask the questions, and it would take only a few seconds to complete the cards.
The journeys from one settlement to another were often nightmares. He would come at the end of the day to some godforsaken settlement in the backwoods, only to be de- voured by insects in some wretched prison house, the only place where he could be put up for the night. He speaks of whole walls covered with dark crepe, which stirred as if blown by a wind, boiling and seething with the energies of beetles, cockroaches and other insects; the loud rustling and whispering would keep him awake all night. Usually it was bitterly cold, and he was often drenched by the rain and had to sleep in his damp clothes. He was already suffering from tuberculosis, and these months on Sakhalin were at least partly responsible for his premature death.
It was not only the sounds of the insects which dis- turbed him at night. Sometimes he heard the prisoners moaning in their sleep, the endless litany of lament which ended only with the cold dawn, and at such times the full horror of the prison system would come to him out of the darkness. At Derbinskoye, which he reached after a mis- erable journey through the rain, he was given lodging in a warehouse incomprehensibly filled with Viennese furniture. It was clean, there were no insects, and after visiting some huts he spent many hours poring over the official records before turning to bed. He wrote about that night and the next mornmg:
The rain fell continually, rattling on the roof, and once in a while a belated prisoner or soldier passed by, slopping through the mud. It was quiet in the warehouse and in my soul, but I had scarcely put out the candle and gone to bed when I heard a rustling, whispering, knocking, splashing sound, and deep sighs. Raindrops fell from the ceiling onto the latticework of the Viennese chairs and made a hollow, ringing sound, and after each such sound someone whis- pered in despair: ''Oh, my God, my God!" Next to the warehouse was the prison. Were the convicts coming at me through an underground passage? But then there came a gust of wind, the rain rattled even more strongly, some- where a tree rustled—and again, a deep, despairing sigh: "Oh, my God, my God!"
In the morning I went out on the steps. The sky was gray and overcast, the rain continued to fall, and it was muddy. The warden walked hurriedly from door to door with his keys.