gain."

"Well, what is our life here?" Godfrey asked.

Alexis shrugged his shoulders. "As a life it is detestable, though were
it for a short time only there would be nothing to grumble about. We are
fairly fed; we have each a patch of ground, where we can grow
vegetables. The twelve men in these huts can visit and talk to each
other. When that is said all is said. Oh, by the way, we are also
permitted to make anything we like! that is, we can buy the materials if
we have money, and the work can be sold in the town. There is one man
has made himself a turning-lathe, and he makes all sorts of pretty
little things. There is another man who was an officer in the navy; he
carves little models of ships out of wood and bone. Another man paints.
I have not decided yet what I shall do. I had two or three hundred
roubles when I was sent off here, and as I only spent four or five on
the road, I have plenty to last me for some time for tea and tobacco."

"But how do you get them?"

"The warders smuggle them in. It is an understood thing, and there is no
real objection to it, though they are very strict about bringing in
spirits. Still we can get vodka if we have a mind to; it is only a
question of bribery."

"How long are you here for, Alexis?"

"Fifteen years."

"I am supposed to be in for life," Godfrey said.

"Fifteen years is as bad as life," the young doctor said. "What is the
use of your life after having been shut up here for fifteen years?"

"Well, I don't mean to stay, that is one thing," Godfrey said. "There
can't be any difficulty in escaping from here."

"Not the least in the world," Alexis said quietly. "But where do you
propose to go?"

"I have not settled yet. It seems to me that any one with pluck and
energy ought to be able to make his way out of this country somehow;
besides, from what I hear great numbers do get away, and take to the
woods."

"Yes, but they have to give themselves up again."

"That may be; but I hear also that if they give themselves up a long way
from the prison they escape from, and refuse to give any account
whatever of themselves, they are simply sent to prison again as
vagabonds. In that case they are treated as ordinary convicts. Now from
what I hear, an ordinary convict is infinitely better off than a
political one. Of course you have to associate with a bad lot; still
that is better than almost solitary confinement. The work they have to
do is not hard, and if they are w