5th), 1849. In the Peter-Paul Fortress prison, where he was kept for
eight months pending trial, Dostoevsky wrote 'The Little Hero,' two or
three unimportant works having appeared since 'Poor People.' At last
he, with several others, was condemned to death and led out for
execution. The history of that day, and the analysis of his sensations
and emotions, are to be found in several of his books: 'Crime and
Punishment,' 'The Idiot,' 'The Karamazoff Brothers.' At the last
moment it was announced to them that the Emperor had commuted their
sentence to exile in varying degrees, and they were taken to Siberia.
Alexei Pleshtcheeff, then twenty-three years of age, the man who sent
Byelinsky's letter to Dostoevsky, was banished for a short term of
years to the disciplinary brigade in Orenburg; and when I saw him in
St. Petersburg forty years later, I was able to form a faint idea of
what Dostoevsky's popularity must have been, by the way in which
he,--a man of much less talent, originality, and personal power,--was
surrounded, even in church, by adoring throngs of young people.
Dostoevsky's sentence was "four years at forced labor in prison; after
that, to serve as a common soldier"; but he did not lose his nobility
and his civil rights, being the first noble to retain them under such
circumstances.

The story of what he did and suffered during his imprisonment is to be
found in his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' where, under the
disguise of a man sentenced to ten years' labor for the murder of his
wife, he gives us a startling, faithful, but in some respects a
consoling picture of life in a Siberian prison. His own judgment as to
his exile was, "The government only defended itself;" and when people
said to him, "How unjust your exile was!" he replied, even with
irritation, "No, it was just. The people themselves would have
condemned us." Moreover, he did not like to give benefit readings in
later years from his 'Notes from the House of the Dead,' lest he might
be thought to complain. Besides, this catastrophe was the making of
him, by his own confession; he had become a confirmed hypochondriac,
with a host of imaginary afflictions and ills, and had this affair not
saved him from himself he said that he "should have gone mad." It
seems certain, from the testimony of his friend and physician, that he
was already subject to the epileptic fits which he himself was wont to
attribute to his imprisonment; and which certainly inc