than by the regular and healthy regime, the strengthening
of my soul and body was helped by the wonderful, yet natural,
peculiarity of our prison, which eliminates entirely the accidental and
the unexpected from its life. Having neither a family nor friends, I am
perfectly safe from the shocks, so injurious to life, which are caused
by treachery, by the illness or death of relatives--let my indulgent
reader recall how many people have perished before his eyes not of
their own fault, but because capricious fate had linked them to people
unworthy of them. Without changing my feeling of love into trivial
personal attachments, I thus make it free for the broad and mighty love
for all mankind; and as mankind is immortal, not subjected to illness,
and as a harmonious whole it is undoubtedly progressing toward
perfection, love for it becomes the surest guarantee of spiritual and
physical soundness.

My day is clear. So are also my days of the future, which are coming
toward me in radiant and even order. A murderer will not break into my
cell for the purpose of robbing me, a mad automobile will not crush me,
the illness of a child will not torture me, cruel treachery will not
steal its way to me from the darkness. My mind is free, my heart is
calm, my soul is clear and bright.

The clear and rigid rules of our prison define everything that I must
not do, thus freeing me from those unbearable hesitations, doubts,
and errors with which practical life is filled. True, sometimes there
penetrates even into our prison, through its high walls, something
which ignorant people call chance, or even Fate, and which is only an
inevitable reflection of the general laws; but the life of the prison,
agitated for a moment, quickly goes back to its habitual rut, like
a river after an overflow. To this category of accidents belong
the above-mentioned murder of the Inspector, the rare and always
unsuccessful attempts at escape, and also the executions, which take
place in one of the remotest yards of our prison.

There is still another peculiarity in the system of our prison, which I
consider most beneficial, and which gives to the whole thing a character
of stern and noble justice. Left to himself, and only to himself, the
prisoner cannot count upon support, or upon that spurious, wretched pity
which so often falls to the lot of weak people, disfiguring thereby the
fundamental purposes of nature.

I confess that I think, with a certain sense