I discovered with great pleasure that I had at my left my friend Serdukóff, with whom I could soon talk about everything, especially when we used our cipher. But intercourse with men brought its sufferings as well as its joys. Underneath me was lodged a peasant, whom Serdukóff knew. He talked to him by means of knocks; and even against my will, often unconsciously during my work, I followed their conversations. I also spoke to him. Now, if solitary confinement without any sort of work is hard for educated men, it is infinitely harder for a peasant who is accustomed to physical work, and not at all wont to spend years in reading. Our peasant friend felt quite miserable, and having been kept for nearly two years in another prison before he was brought to the fortress--his crime was that he had listened to Socialists--he was already broken down. Soon I began to notice, to my terror, that from time to time his mind wandered. Gradually his thoughts grew more and more confused, and we two perceived, step by step, day by day, evidences that his reason was failing, until his talk became at last that of a lunatic. Frightful noises and wild cries came next from the lower story; our neighbor was mad, but was still kept for several months in the casemate before he was removed to an asylum, from which he never emerged. To witness the destruction of a man's mind, under such conditions, was terrible. I am sure it must have contributed to increase the nervous irritability of my good and true friend Serdukóff. When, after four years' imprisonment, he was acquitted by the court and released, he shot himself. Batuschka BY THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (New England poet and journalist, 1836-1907) From yonder gilded minaret Beside the steel-blue Neva set, I faintly catch, from time to time, The sweet, aerial midnight chime-- "God save the Tsar!" Above the ravelins and the moats Of the white citadel it floats; And men in dungeons far beneath Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth-- "God save the Tsar!" The soft reiterations sweep Across the horror of their sleep, As if some demon in his glee Were mocking at their misery-- "God save the Tsar!" In his red palace over there, Wakeful, he needs must hear the prayer. How can it drown the broken cries Wrung from his children's agonies?-- "God save the Tsar!" Father they called him from of old-- Batuschka!... How his heart is cold! Wait till a million scourgèd men Rise in their awful might, and then-- "God save the Tsar!" Breshkovskaya BY ELSA BARKER (Contemporary American poet and novelist. Catherine Breshkovsky, called "Little Mother" by the Russian peasants, was sentenced to a long term of exile in Siberia when seventy-seven years of age)