IX + 

Another seven years passed. Mezhenétsky had served his sentence of solitary confinement in the Petropávlof Fortress, and was being transported to penal servitude in Siberia. + 

During those seven years he had lived through a great deal, but the trend of his thoughts had not changed, nor had his energy weakened. When cross-examined before his imprisonment in the Fortress, he had astonished the magistrates and judges by his firmness and his scornful attitude with regard to the people in whose power he found himself. In the depths of his soul he suffered because he had been caught and was unable to finish the work he had begun; but he did not show it. As soon as he was face to face with people, the energy of anger awoke in him. He remained silent when questioned, except when an opportunity presented itself to say something that would wound one of the examiners: a gendarme officer, or the Public Prosecutor. + 

When the usual phrase, “You can materially better your position by a frank confession,” was repeated to him, he smiled contemptuously and said, after a short pause: + 

“If you expect to make me betray my comrades, through fear or for profit, you are judging me by yourselves. Can you possibly imagine that when doing what you are now trying me for, I was not prepared for the worst? So you cannot surprise or frighten me by anything you do; you can do to me what you like, but I shall not speak.” + 

He was pleased to see how, quite abashed, they glanced at one another. + 

In the Petropávlof Fortress he was put into a small damp cell with a window high up in the wall, and he knew that it was not for months, but for years, and was seized with terror at the well-ordered, dead silence and by the consciousness that he was not alone, but that behind these impenetrable walls were other prisoners, sentenced to ten or twenty years’ confinement, committing suicide, being hanged, going out of their minds, or slowly dying of consumption. Here were men and women and friends, perhaps.⁠ ⁠… “Years will pass, and I too shall lose my reason, hang myself, or die. And no one will ever hear of it,” he thought. + 

Anger rose in his soul, against everybody, but especially against those who were the cause of his imprisonment. This anger demanded objects to wreck itself on, demanded action and noise⁠—but here was dead silence, or the soft footsteps of silent men who answered no questions, and the sound of doors being locked or unlocked, food brought at appointed hours, visits from the silent men, the light of the rising sun shining through the dim panes, then darkness; and the same silence, and the same footsteps, and the same sounds, today and tomorrow.⁠ ⁠… And his anger, unable to vent itself, ate into his heart. + 

He tried to tap, but was not answered, and his tapping was followed only by the same soft footsteps, and the calm voice of a man threatening him with the punishment cell. + 

Only sleep brought rest and relief; but the awakening was all the more dreadful. In his dreams he always saw himself free, and generally absorbed in actions he considered incompatible with Revolutionary activity. Sometimes he was playing some strange kind of violin, sometimes courting girls, or rowing in a boat, or hunting, or having a doctor’s degree conferred on him by some foreign University for a strange scientific discovery, and returning thanks in a speech at a dinner-party. These dreams were so distinct, and the reality so dull and monotonous, that they differed little from actuality. + 

The only painful thing about his dreams was that he always woke up at the very moment that what he was striving for and longing for was on the point of being realized. With a sudden heart-pang all the pleasant circumstances would vanish, and only the torment of unfulfilled desires remained. And again there was the grey wall with the damp marks, lit up by a small lamp, and under his body the hard plank bed, with the hay all pushed to one side in the sack which served for a mattress. The pleasantest time was when he was asleep; but the longer he was in prison, the less he slept. He waited for sleep as for the greatest happiness: he longed for it, and the more he longed, the wider awake he became. He needed only to ask himself, “Am I falling asleep?” for his drowsiness to vanish. + 

Running about and jumping in his cage did not help. Active exercise only brought on weakness and excited his nerves; the crown of his head began to ache, and he had but to shut his eyes to see faces appearing on a dark, spangled background⁠—shaggy, bald, large-mouthed, crooked-mouthed⁠—each more horrible than the rest. These faces made most terrifying grimaces. Later on they began to appear when his eyes were open, and not only the faces, but whole figures chattering and dancing. He grew terrified, jumped up, knocked his head against the wall, and screamed. Then the slot in the door would open: + 

“Screaming is forbidden!” a calm, monotonous voice would remark. + 

“Call the inspector!” shouted Mezhenétsky. He received no answer, and the slot was again closed. And such despair would seize him that he longed for one thing only⁠—death. Once, when in such a state, he decided to take his life. There was a ventilator in the cell, to which a rope with a noose could be fastened, and by getting on to the bedstead it would be possible to hang oneself. But he had no rope. He began to tear his sheet into strips, but there were not enough of them. + 

Then he decided to starve himself, and did not eat for two days; but on the third he became quite weak, and had a worse fit of hallucinations. When food was brought him he lay with open eyes, but unconscious, on the floor. The doctor came, laid him on the bed, and gave him rum and morphia, and he fell asleep. + 

When he awoke next morning, the doctor was standing by him, shaking his head. And suddenly Mezhenétsky was seized by the stimulating sensation of anger, which he had long not felt. + 

“How is it you are not ashamed to serve here?” he said, as the doctor, with bowed head, counted his pulse. “Why are you doctoring me, only to torment me again? Why, it is just the same as standing at a flogging and giving permission to repeat the operation!” + 

“Be so good as to turn round on your back,” the doctor said, quite unruffled, and, without looking at him, took out of his side-pocket the instruments for sounding him. + 

“They used to heal the wounds, in order that the remaining five thousand strokes could be given!⁠ ⁠… Go to the devil! Go to hell!” he suddenly exclaimed, taking his legs off the bed. “Be off!⁠ ⁠… I’ll die without you!” + 

“That’s not right, young man.⁠ ⁠… We know an answer for rudeness.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“To the devil, to the devil!” and Mezhenétsky was so terrible that the doctor hurried away. + 