So he lived one, two, three years: occasionally discontinuing this rigorous order of life for a time, but always returning to it again. Fits of insomnia and visions of horrible faces rarely troubled him now, and when they did, he looked at the ventilator and pictured to himself how he would fasten a rope to it, make a noose, and hang himself. He managed to master these fits, and they never lasted long.

Thus he spent nearly seven years. When his term of imprisonment came to an end, and he started on his way to penal servitude in Siberia, he was quite healthy, fresh, and in perfect possession of his mental faculties.