The man on whom depended the easing of the fate of the Petersburg prisoners was an old General of repute—­a baron of German descent, who, as it was said of him, had outlived his wits.  He had received a profusion of orders, but only wore one of them, the Order of the White Cross.  He had received this order, which he greatly valued, while serving in the Caucasus, because a number of Russian peasants, with their hair cropped, and dressed in uniform and armed with guns and bayonets, had killed at his command more than a thousand men who were defending their liberty, their homes, and their families.  Later on he served in Poland, and there also made Russian peasants commit many different crimes, and got more orders and decorations for his uniform.  Then he served somewhere else, and now that he was a weak, old man he had this position, which insured him a good house, an income and respect.  He strictly observed all the regulations which were prescribed “from above,” and was very zealous in the fulfilment of these regulations, to which he ascribed a special importance, considering that everything else in the world might be changed except the regulations prescribed “from above.”  His duty was to keep political prisoners, men and women, in solitary confinement in such a way that half of them perished in 10 years’ time, some going out of their minds, some dying of consumption, some committing suicide by starving themselves to death, cutting their veins with bits of glass, hanging, or burning themselves to death.

The old General was not ignorant of this; it all happened within his knowledge; but these cases no more touched his conscience than accidents brought on by thunderstorms, floods, etc.  These cases occurred as a consequence of the fulfilment of regulations prescribed “from above” by His Imperial Majesty.  These regulations had to be carried out without fail, and therefore it was absolutely useless to think of the consequences of their fulfilment.  The old General did not even allow himself to think of such things, counting it his patriotic duty as a soldier not to think of them for fear of getting weak in the carrying out of these, according to his opinion, very important obligations.  Once a week the old General made the round of the cells, one of the duties of his position, and asked the prisoners if they had any requests to make.  The prisoners had all sorts of requests.  He listened to them quietly, in impenetrable silence, and never fulfilled any of their requests, because they were all in disaccord with the regulations.  Just as Nekhludoff drove up to the old General’s house, the high notes of the bells on the belfry clock chimed “Great is the Lord,” and then struck two.  The sound of these chimes brought back to Nekhludoff’s mind what he had read in the notes of the Decembrists [the Decembrists were a group who attempted, but failed, to put an end to absolutism in Russia at the time of the accession of Nicholas the First] about the way this sweet music repeated every hour re-echoes in the hearts of those imprisoned for life.