Was it possible that all his powers had been wasted: his energy, his strength of will, his genius (he did not consider anyone above him in mental qualities) wasted for nothing? He remembered the letter he had received quite lately, when already on his way to Siberia, from Svetlogoúb’s mother, reproaching him (“like a woman,” stupidly, as he thought) for having led her son to perdition by drawing him into the terrorist activity. When he received that letter he had only smiled contemptuously; what could that stupid woman understand of the aims that stood before him and Svetlogoúb? But now, when he recalled the letter and Svetlogoúb’s sweet, trusting, affectionate nature, he began to muse: first about Svetlogoúb, and then about himself. Could his whole life have been a mistake? He closed his eyes and tried to fall asleep, but was horrified to find that the state he had been in during his first month in the Petropávlof Fortress had again returned. Again he felt the pain in the crown of his head, again he saw faces with enormous mouths, shaggy and terrible, on a dark background, speckled with little stars; and again forms appeared before his open eyes.