We now conversed together freely. Our names were well known to each other, and we had many common friends. Of course, we were very anxious to know one another by sight, and we accomplished this in the following manner. From the windows of our cells, which were on the fifth floor, we could see into the “cattle-pens”; and though we were all supposed to take our exercise at the same time, we arranged together that each should manage to get out of it on different days, and that he who remained in his cell should recognise the other by a preconcerted signal. The next thing was to know one another’s voice, and this also we succeeded in effecting. We knew that in this prison, “politicals,” in the “Case of the 193,” not only spoke together, but even conveyed small objects to one another, by means of the water-closet pipes. The sanitary system here was so arranged that on all the six storeys each pair of cells was in communication, not only with one another, but also with those immediately above and below. Thus twelve prisoners could arrange together that they should simultaneously let the water run, so making a space in the pipes that acted as a speaking-tube; and if one spoke into the opening the voice could be heard perfectly in the connected cells, while the running water prevented any inconvenient odour. In this fashion we instituted a club of twelve members. CHAPTER VIII FRESH FEARS—THE COLONEL OF GENDARMERIE—INQUIRY INTO THE CASE OF GENERAL MEZENTZEV’S MURDER—MEETING WITH BOGDANOVITCH—DEPARTURE During my imprisonment in the Petersburg House of Detention my spirits were altogether more cheerful than they had been since my first arrest. At Freiburg I had been in a chronic state of excitement and unrest, longing for the freedom that seemed so near. In the Fortress of Peter and Paul I had been downcast and despairing. Now I had reached a condition of equanimity and indifference. “Hard labour in the Siberian mines,” I thought to myself. “What does it matter whether it be for ten years or fifteen? It is much the same to me.” My future was done for, my life gone. It is hard for a man to reconcile himself to such a thought, particularly when he feels physically sound and healthy, but one does somehow get accustomed to it. At times there will arise sudden hopes, dreams of unexpected luck, of happiness in a distant future; and then wild visions chase one another in dazzling pictures through one’s brain. But I had lived through too many bitter self-deceptions of the kind when I was at Freiburg; and I was only annoyed with myself when I found my fancy dallying with them, and tried to extinguish them at once. “Nonsense!” I cried to myself; “if anything, the only unexpected turn Fate will do you will be some bad trick.” And I steadfastly made up my mind to the worst.