It is all the more important for being made unconsciously, instinctively. As for doctors—they are a veritable refuge for prisoners in many cases, especially for those under sentence, who are kept in worse conditions than the ordinary convicts … And so the sentenced man, having calculated the probable time until his terrible day, often gets to the hospital, wishing to put the difficult moment off a while longer. When he is discharged, knowing that tomorrow is almost certainly the fatal day, he is almost always in great agitation. Some try to conceal their feelings out of vanity, but their awkward, affected bravado does not deceive their comrades. They all understand what it is about and say nothing out of human sympathy. I knew a prisoner, a young man, a murderer, a former soldier, who was sentenced to the maximum number of rods. He was so frightened that on the eve of the punishment he decided to drink a jug of vodka infused with snuff. Incidentally, vodka always turns up for a condemned prisoner before his punishment. It is smuggled in long before the appointed day, is obtained for big money, and the condemned man would sooner go six months without necessities so as to save up the sum needed for a half pint of vodka to be drunk fifteen minutes before the punishment. There is a general conviction among prisoners that a drunk man does not feel the rods or lashes as badly. But I am digressing from my story. The poor fellow, having drunk his jug of vodka, in fact became sick at once; he began to vomit blood and was taken to the hospital nearly unconscious. This vomiting so damaged his lungs that after a few days he showed symptoms of real consumption, from which he died six months later. The doctors who treated him for consumption had no idea what had caused it.

But, since I am telling about the faintheartedness frequently met with in prisoners awaiting punishment, I must add that, on the contrary, some of them astonish the observer by their extraordinary fearlessness. I recall several examples of courage that reached the point of a sort of insensibility, and these examples were not that rare. I particularly recall my encounter with one frightful criminal. One summer day rumor spread through the prisoners’ wards that in the evening the famous brigand Orlov, a runaway soldier, was to be punished, and after the punishment he would be brought to the ward. Waiting for Orlov, the sick prisoners affirmed that he was to be cruelly punished. They were all in some agitation, and, I confess, I also awaited the famous brigand’s appearance with great curiosity. I had long been hearing wonders about him. He was an evildoer such as few are, who put his knife cold-bloodedly into old people and children—a man with a formidable strength of will and a proud consciousness of his strength. He pleaded guilty to many murders and was sentenced to run the gauntlet. It was already evening when he was brought. The ward was dark, and candles had been lit. Orlov was nearly unconscious, terribly pale, with thick, disheveled, pitch-black hair. His back was swollen and of a bloody blue color. The prisoners tended to him all night, changed the water for him, turned him from side to side, gave him medicine, as if they were caring for some near and dear one, or some benefactor. The very next day he came fully to his senses and paced up and down the ward a couple of times! That amazed me: he had been so weak and exhausted when he arrived in the hospital. He had made it at one go through half the total number of rods he was sentenced to. The doctor had stopped the punishment only when he saw that to continue it threatened the inevitable death of the criminal.