I used to go as before to pound alabaster, or to the workshop, or I was employed to carry bricks on the building. I once had to carry bricks a distance of about a hundred and sixty yards, from the bank of the Irtish to the barracks that were being built on the other side of the fortress rampart, and I had to go on doing this every day for two months. I positively liked the work, though the cord in which I had to carry the bricks always cut my shoulder. But I liked to feel that I was obviously gaining muscular strength through the work. At first I could only carry eight bricks and each brick weighed nearly eleven pounds. But I got up to twelve and even fifteen bricks later on and that was a great joy to me. In prison physical strength is no less necessary than moral strength to enable one to endure the hardships of that accursed manner of life.

And I wanted to go on living when I got out of prison.