Regularly once a week I went to have half my head shaved. Every Saturday in our free time we were called out in turn from the prison to the guardhouse (if we did not go we had to get shaved on our own account) and there the barbers of the battalion rubbed our heads with cold lather and mercilessly scraped them with blunt razors; it makes me shiver even now when I recall that torture. But the remedy was soon found: Akim Akimitch pointed out to me a convict in the military division who for a kopeck would shave with his own razor anyone who liked. That was his trade. Many of the convicts went to him to escape the prison barbers, though they were by no means a sensitive lot. Our convict barber was called the major