The worst was the silence, as of the grave, which reigned about me. In vain I knocked on the walls and struck the floor with my foot, listening for the faintest sound in reply. None was to be heard. One month passed, then two, three, fifteen months, but there was no reply to my knocks. We were only six then, scattered among thirty-six casemates, --- all my arrested comrades being kept in the Litóvskiy Zámok prison. When the noncommissioned officer entered my cell to take me out for a walk, and I asked him, "What kind of weather have we? Does it rain ?" he cast a furtive side glance at me, and without saying a word promptly retired behind the door, where a sentry and another noncommissioned officer kept watch upon him. The only living being from whom I could hear even a few words was the governor, who came to my cell every morning to say "good-morning" and ask whether I wanted to buy tobacco or paper. I tried to engage him in conversation; but...