to wander about the prison barracks; almost every one else would be at work, only he had nothing to do. If anything was said to him, usually a taunt (he and the others in his division were often made fun of), he would turn round and go off to another room without saying a word; sometimes he blushed crimson if he were much ridiculed. I often wondered how this peaceable, simple-hearted creature had come into prison. Once I was in the convicts’ ward in the hospital. Sirotkin too was ill, and was in the bed next to mine; one evening we fell into talk. Somehow he got warmed up, and incidentally told me how he had been taken for a soldier, how his mother cried seeing him off, and how wretched he was as a recruit. He added that he could not endure the life of a recruit, because every one there was so cross and stern, and the officers were almost always displeased with him.
“How did it end?” I asked. “What brought you here? And in the special division too. . . . Ah, Sirotkin, Sirotkin!”
“Why, I was only a year in the battalion, Alexandr Petrovitch, and I came here because I killed my commanding officer.”
“I’d heard it, Sirotkin, but I can’t believe it. How could you kill anyone?”
“It happened so, Alexandr Petrovitch. I was awfully miserable.”
“But how do the other recruits manage? Of course it’s hard at first, but they get used to it and in the end they become fine soldiers. Your mother must have spoiled you; she fed you on milk and goodies till you were eighteen.”
“My mother was very fond of me, it’s true. She took to her bed when I went for a recruit and I’ve heard she never got up from it. . . . Life was very bitter to me at last when I was a recruit. The officer did not like me, he was always punishing me—and what for? I gave way to every one, was punctual in everything, did not touch vodka, did not pick up any habits; it’s a bad business, you know, Alexandr Petrovitch, when one picks up habits. Such cruel-heartedness everywhere, no chance to have a good cry. Sometimes you’d get behind a corner and cry there. Well, I was once on sentry duty. It was at night; I was put as sentry by the gunrack. It was windy; it was autumn, and pitch-dark. And I felt so sick, so sick. I stood my gun on the ground, I twisted off the bayonet and put it on one side; slipped off my right boot, put the barrel to my breast, leant against it and with my big toe pulled the trigger. It
