I have said that relations between prisoners and escort were now very easy-going; strict discipline was no longer the watchword on either side. This had its disadvantages, the soldiers being often very rough with the ordinary prisoners. One day, as we were marching to Nertchinsk, I saw a soldier behaving very brutally to a poor feeble old convict, knocking him about with his rifle-butt for climbing on to one of the carts, and apparently only because the soldier had meant to ride on it himself. I intervened, and called to the sergeant in command that I should report him for not keeping his men in order. Next day, as we went through the town on our way to the prison, I stepped into a sausage shop to buy some provisions, when the soldier whose party I had left called after me, “Where are you going? What do you want?” I let him shout, and concluded my purchases. I then saw that the sergeant had driven on and disappeared, but I only thought that he had taken some short cut to the prison and would meet us there, and I was much surprised when the governor of the gaol received me with the information that the sergeant had reported me for insulting the guard and leaving the ranks without permission. I suppose he wished to forestall the complaint I had threatened him with, about which I had quite forgotten, and I now turned the tables on him by making it in due form. The upshot was that the sergeant apologised to me in the presence of witnesses, and we were respectively pleased to withdraw our complaints! At Nertchinsk, Tchuikòv and I were taken to the men’s prison, and Maria Kalyùshnaya was given a separate cell. I shall never in my life forget the picture that prison presented. From the dimly-lighted corridor one could see into the various rooms, where the prisoners were already lying down, as it was late. Packed closely side by side they lay not only on the wooden bed-places (which were two wide shelves running along the walls one above the other), but all about the floor; there was literally not an inch of vacant space. Most of the men were clad in shirt and trousers, but many had only trousers on, and lay uncovered on the filthy floor. The throng was so dense, that in order to get to the “privileged” room we had actually to step on the bodies of the sleepers. The stench was pestilential, the wooden tubs filled with excrement were everywhere about, and as they were leaky their contents had been trodden over the whole floor. Although most of the men were asleep, here and there groups of excited card-players squatted on the floor or the bed-places, and throughout the whole place there was a deafening babel of sounds. The general effect was most gruesome, a circle of the Dantean Inferno was the only possible comparison.