In the course of our conversation I expressed my surprise that although I had been surrendered by Germany as an ordinary criminal, only to be proceeded against as such, they had brought me to the Fortress of Peter and Paul, which everyone knows is reserved for “politicals.” “Neither do I understand,” I added, “why I have been brought to Petersburg, when the deed for which I am to answer was committed in Odessa, and according to law the trial should take place there.” Kotliarèvsky gave me no answer on this point, but he promised to see about my being allowed to provide myself with more comforts from my own purse, and said he would speak to Plehve,[26] the chief of the Central Department of the State Police. Footnote 26: The present Minister of the Interior.—_Trans._ Shortly after this Colonel Lesnik gave me a more comfortable cell on the first floor, and henceforward he treated me somewhat better. Two days later he told me that my money and luggage had arrived from the police department, so I could now purchase food and tobacco. I congratulated myself even more on getting my spectacles again; but it seemed that for this I must have an order from the prison doctor, and he was sent to see me. He was an elderly man of between sixty and seventy, and had the rank of a general officer. He was well known to be of a very harsh and unpleasant disposition, and soon gave me a proof of his quality. He turned up my eyelids, fixed me with a forbidding glare, and declared off-hand that my eyes were perfectly normal and that I did not need glasses. In reality qualified oculists have diagnosed a rather unusual abnormality in my vision, and since my eighteenth year I have been obliged to use spectacles for reading. This dictum of the prison doctor upset me cruelly; I felt so desperate that I could scarcely control myself, but was ready to weep and to curse. “I beg you to consider again,” I cried. “You are quite mistaken; I really cannot read without glasses. Think what you are doing; you are condemning me to a hideous torture, in robbing me of the only distraction allowed here.” Nothing was of any avail; the man remained immovable, repeating obstinately, “You do not need glasses,” and therewith took his departure. I clenched my fists, a prey to impotent wrath, and nearly broke down altogether. But what was I to do? I had to bear it; and it is hard to say what a man cannot put up with. But to this moment I cannot think of that doctor without my blood boiling. The only consolation left me was my cigarette, and it became a friend and comforter in my loneliness. To a captive smoking not merely gives pleasure, but takes from him the sense of utter desolation.