Our life was one of dismal uniformity. Day after day, month after month, went past and left no trace in remembrance. One day was exactly like another, and all alike seemed endless. Whole years elapsed, and from each three hundred and sixty-five days there could not be singled out one on which any event had occurred worthy of recollection. In vain one racks one’s brain trying to arouse a memory of that monotonous past. When we arose in the morning we knew exactly what the day would bring; indeed, one knew beforehand what the next day and the next week and month would contain. One knew the manners, customs, inclinations of every comrade in misfortune, could tell what each would be likely to say or do on any given occasion, and sometimes one would long to run away and hide, and never see their faces again. But there is no running away; every minute of the year you are obliged to endure the company of those others, and to burden them with your own; there is not a moment in which you can be alone, not a corner in the common room to which you can withdraw for real privacy. To all this is added the rigour of the prison routine: the roll-call morning and evening, the periodical inspections, the shaving of heads that takes place with painful regularity, the constant presence of the gendarmes. The strain at times becomes insupportable, and the nerves are so shattered that the creaking of the great lock in the frequent opening and shutting of the door affects one almost to madness. Many of us became irritable to an extent incomprehensible to a normally sound person, and with some of us (though not with many) this would at times lead to loss of temper and quarrelling over the veriest nothings. It thus once happened that two friends, both intelligent and well-educated men of mature years, fell out with one another literally about an egg-shell, which occasioned a dispute that led to a break between them. This can only be conceivable if one realises that even people who love each other tenderly might find it difficult to endure such close and uninterrupted intercourse. What, then, must have been our situation, locked up together, forced to inflict unwillingly on each other a companionship which there was no alternative but to accept?