The audience, before the curtain rose, crowded and crushed into the narrow theatre, wild with suppressed excitement. Two benches were placed immediately in front of the stage, which was lighted with candle ends. These seats, with one or two chairs, were for the officers who might deign to be present,—the overseers, clerks, directors of works and engineers. Behind stood the convicts respectfully, row after row. Some were posted on the camp beds or had climbed up on the porcelain stove, and every face glowed with delight, a strange look of infinite contentment and unmixed pleasure shining on these scarred and branded countenances so generally dark and forbidding. Everyone was dressed in his best, his short sheepskin pelisse, in spite of the suffocating heat, and each face was damp with perspiration. Everyone was there: The Tartars and Circassians, who showed a passionate delight for the theatre; Young Ali, whose childish face beamed and whose laughter was contagious; the Jew, Isaiah Fomich, who was in an ecstasy from the rising of the curtain to its fall, and rejoiced at the chance of showing off, for when the plate was passed he ostentatiously contributed the imposing sum of ten kopecks, or twopence, halfpenny. As the play proceeded, it was received with warm applause. Cries of approbation were heard in all parts of the house. The convicts nudged each other with loud whispers, calling attention to the jokes, laughing uproariously, smacking their lips and clacking their tongues, and toward the end the gaiety reached its climax. “Imagine the convict prison,” says Dostoyevski, “the chains of long years of captivity in close confinement, the bodily toil monotonous and unending, the accumulated, long protracted misery and despair, and the grim place of durance transformed on this occasion into one of light-hearted amusement where prisoners might forget their condition, dismiss the nightmare of crime and breathe freely and laugh aloud.” A comedy in prison! The convicts were in costumes altogether different from the daily garb of shame, but with the inseparable chains always obstructing. One was in female attire, wearing an old worn-out muslin dress, with neck and arms bare and a pert calico cap on his half shaven head. Another represented a gentleman of fashion in a frock coat, round hat and cloak, but his chains rattled as he strutted across the stage; one was in the full-dress but faded uniform of an aide-de-camp. There were convicts in many characters, strange and varied: a nobleman, an innkeeper, demons, a Brahmin in flowing robes. Every one was delighted when the performance ended, and the convicts separated, quite pleased to have been taken away from themselves for a brief space, full of praise for the actors and of gratitude to their superiors, who had permitted the play to be given. It was a wise concession, for the convicts made a point of conducting themselves in the most exemplary fashion.