One of the most sympathetic characters Dostoievsky describes is a young Tartar called Alei, who was not more than twenty-two years old. He had an open, clever, and even beautiful face, and a good-natured and naïve expression which won your heart at once. His smile was so confiding, so childlike and simple, his big black eyes so soft and kind, that it was a consolation merely to look at him. He was in prison for having taken part in an expedition made by his brothers against a rich Armenian merchant whom they had robbed. He retained his softness of heart and simplicity and his strict honesty all the time he was in prison; he never quarrelled, although he knew quite well how to stand up for himself, and everybody liked him. “I consider Alei,” writes Dostoievsky, “as being far from an ordinary personality, and I count my acquaintance with him as one of the most valuable events of my life. There are characters so beautiful by nature, so near to God, that even the very thought that they may some day change for the worse seems impossible. As far as they are concerned you feel absolutely secure, and I now feel secure for Alei. Where is he now?” I cannot help quoting two incidents in Dostoievsky’s prison life which seem to me to throw light on the characteristics of the people with whom he mixed, and their manner of behaviour; the first is a story of how a young soldier called Sirotkin came to be a convict. Here is the story which Dostoievsky gives us in the man’s own words: “My mother loved me very much. When I became a recruit, I have since heard, she lay down on her bed and never rose again. As a recruit I found life bitter. The colonel did not like me, and punished me for everything. And what for? I was obedient, orderly, I never drank wine, I never borrowed, and that, Alexander Petrovitch, is a bad business, when a man borrows. All round me were such hard hearts, there was no place where one could have a good cry. Sometimes I would creep into a corner and cry a little there. Once I was standing on guard as a sentry; it was night. The wind was blowing, it was autumn, and so dark you could see nothing. And I was so miserable, so miserable! I took my gun, unscrewed the bayonet, and laid it on the ground; then I pulled off my right boot, put the muzzle of the barrel to my heart, leaned heavily on it and pulled the trigger with my big toe. It was a miss-fire. I examined the gun, cleaned the barrel, put in another cartridge and again pressed it to my breast. Again a miss-fire. I put on my boot again, fixed the bayonet, shouldered my gun, and walked up and down in silence; and I settled that whatever might happen I would get out of being a recruit. Half an hour later the colonel rode by, at the head of the patrol, right past me. “‘Is that the way to stand on guard?’ he said. “I took the gun in my hand and speared him with the bayonet right up to the muzzle of the gun. I was severely flogged, and was sent here for life.”