tter, the contents of which I shall not
reproduce. I shall never see her again.

But what am I to do? May the reader pardon these incoherent questions.
They are so natural in a man in my condition. Besides, I caught an acute
rheumatism while travelling, which is most painful and even dangerous
for a man of my age, and which does not permit me to reason calmly. For
some reason or another I think very often about my young friend K., who
went to an untimely grave. How does he feel in his new prison?

To-morrow morning, if my strength will permit me, I intend to pay a
visit to the Warden of our prison and to his esteemed wife. Our prison--

CHAPTER XI

I am profoundly happy to inform my dear reader that I have completely
recovered my physical as well as my spiritual powers. A long rest out
in the country, amid nature's soothing beauties; the contemplation of
village life, which is so simple and bright; the absence of the noise of
the city, where hundreds of wind-mills are stupidly flapping their
long arms before your very nose, and finally the complete solitude,
undisturbed by anything--all these have restored to my unbalanced
view of the world all its former steadiness and its iron, irresistible
firmness. I look upon my future calmly and confidently, and although
it promises me nothing but a lonely grave and the last journey to an
unknown distance, I am ready to meet death just as courageously as I
lived my life, drawing strength from my solitude, from the consciousness
of my innocence and my uprightness.

After long hesitations, which are not quite intelligible to me now, I
finally resolved to establish for myself the system of our prison in all
its rigidness. For that purpose, finding a small house in the outskirts
of the city, which was to be leased for a long term of years, I hired
it. Then with the kind assistance of the Warden of our prison, (I cannot
express my gratitude to him adequately enough in words,) I invited to
the new place one of the most experienced jailers, who is still a
young man, but already hardened in the strict principles of our prison.
Availing myself of his instruction, and also of the suggestions of the
obliging Warden, I have engaged workmen who transformed one of the rooms
into a cell. The measurements as well as the form and all the details of
my new, and, I hope, my last dwelling are strictly in accordance with my
plan. My cell is 8 by 4 yards, 4 yards high, the walls are painted g