In the evening, after dusk, before the prison was locked up, I walked round the fence and an overwhelming sadness came upon me. I never experienced such sadness again in all my prison life. The first day of confinement, whether it be in prison, in the fortress, or in Siberia, is hard to bear.⁠ ⁠… But I remember what absorbed me more than anything was one thought, which haunted me persistently all the time I was in prison, a difficulty that cannot be fully solved⁠—I cannot solve it even now: the inequality of punishment for the same crime. It is true that crimes cannot be compared even approximately. For instance two men may commit murders; all the circumstances of each case are weighed; and in both cases almost the same punishment is given. Yet look at the difference between the crimes. One may have committed a murder for nothing, for an onion: he murdered a peasant on the high road who turned out to have nothing but an onion. “See, father, you sent me to get booty. Here I’ve murdered a peasant and all I’ve found is an onion.” “Fool! An onion means a farthing! A hundred murders and a hundred onions and you’ve got a rouble!” (a prison legend). Another murders a sensual tyrant in defence of the honour of his betrothed, his sister, or his child.