He must overcome all his cravings, all his habits, live under conditions that are insufficient for him; must learn to breathe a different air.⁠ ⁠… He is a fish out of water.⁠ ⁠… And often a punishment supposed to be equal in law is ten times as cruel for him. This is the truth, even if we consider only the material habits which have to be sacrificed.

But the Poles formed a group apart. There were six of them and they kept together. The only other person they liked in our room was a Jew, and him they liked perhaps simply because he amused them. He was liked indeed by the other convicts too, though everyone without exception laughed at him. He was the only Jew among us, and I can’t think of him even now without laughing. Every time I looked at him I could not help recalling Gogol’s Jew Yankel in Taras Bulba