I have already tried to give some idea of what all convicts must suffer when their fetters are first put on and their heads shaved. Until the time of which I write it had been customary (and still is, in the case of anyone belonging to the “privileged classes”) to defer the performance of this barbarous ceremony until arrival in Siberia at the town of Tiumen. But it occurred to the officials that the condemned in the Shebalìn case (_i.e._ Shebalìn, Pankràtov, Karanlov, and Borisòvitch) should be fettered and shaved before their transfer to Moscow. This was hotly resented by the victims themselves, and all the other “politicals” in the Kiëv prison joined in their protest. The authorities then employed force to carry out their intention, and thereupon the prisoners “demonstrated” in the usual fashion, that is, by breaking windows, destroying furniture, etc. The occurrence was reported to Petersburg, and thence the order was at once received to send our four comrades to Schlüsselburg. What that meant I have already indicated: burial alive in a state of perpetual martyrdom. Most of the unhappy victims die in a few years, others lose their reason, and many purposely offer violence to the officials in order to win for themselves a speedy execution. It is easy, then, to imagine our feelings on receiving this news about our comrades, especially as there were some among them at whose door no accusation of any consequence could be laid. Karanlov, for instance, had only been sentenced to four years’ penal servitude, the court-martial having found it impossible to inflict a heavier punishment. He had thereupon married, as his wife would by law be permitted to follow him to Siberia; and his imprisonment in Schlüsselburg meant utter separation for them, as he would not even be allowed to write to her. The case of the Shebalìns was even more sad. The young wife had scarcely parted from her husband when her child—an unweaned infant, whom she had with her in prison—fell ill and died. She herself succumbed to her grief, and late in the autumn died in the Moscow prison. * * * * *