The House of the Dead: or, Prison Life in Siberia. Dostoyevsky Fyodor

was slightly pitted with the small-pox, and that he had fair hair. He belonged, as far as I could make out, to the same company as Sirotkin. The prisoners sometimes laughed at him because he had "exchanged." During the march to Siberia he had exchanged for a red shirt and a silver rouble. It was thought comical that he should have sold himself for such a small sum, to take the name of another prisoner in place of his own, and consequently to accept the other's sentence. Strange as it may appear it was nevertheless true. This custom, which had become traditional, and still existed at the time I was sent to Siberia, I, at first, refused to believe, but found afterwards that it really existed. This is how the exchange was effected:

      1

      Goriantchikoff became himself a soldier in Siberia, when he had finished his term of imprisonment.

      2

      An allusion to the two rows of soldiers, armed with green rods, between which convicts condemned to corporal punishment had and still have to pass. But this punishment now exists only for convicts deprived of all their civil rights. This subject will be returned to further on.

      3

      Men condemned to hard labour, and exiles generally,

1

Goriantchikoff became himself a soldier in Siberia, when he had finished his term of imprisonment.

2

An allusion to the two rows of soldiers, armed with green rods, between which convicts condemned to corporal punishment had and still have to pass. But this punishment now exists only for convicts deprived of all their civil rights. This subject will be returned to further on.

3

Men condemned to hard labour, and exiles generally, are so called by the Russian peasantry.