Then a soldier who has made an attempt to desert.  He is being tried.  Another is on trial for striking an officer who has insulted his mother.  He is put to death.  Others, again, are tried for having refused to shoot.  The runaway soldier sent to a disciplinary battalion and flogged to death.  Another, who is guiltless, flogged, and his wounds sprinkled with salt till he dies.  One of the superior officers stealing money belonging to the soldiers.  Nothing but drunkenness, debauchery, gambling, and arrogance on the part of the authorities.

What is the general condition of the people:  the children are half-starving and degenerate; the houses are full of vermin; an everlasting dull round of labour, of submission, and of sadness.  On the other hand:  ministers, governors of provinces, covetous, ambitious, full of vanity, and anxious to inspire fear.

“But where are men with human feelings?”

“I will show you where they are.”

Here is the cell of a woman in solitary confinement at Schlusselburg.  She is going mad.  Here is another woman—­a girl—­indisposed, violated by soldiers.  A man in exile, alone, embittered, half-dead.  A prison for convicts condemned to hard labour, and women flogged.  They are many.

Tens of thousands of the best people.  Some shut up in prisons, others ruined by false education, by the vain desire to bring them up as we wish.  But not succeeding in this, whatever might have been is ruined as well, for it is made impossible.  It is as if we were trying to make buckwheat out of corn sprouts by splitting the ears.  One may spoil the corn, but one could never change it to buckwheat.  Thus all the youth of the world, the entire younger generation, is being ruined.

But woe to those who destroy one of these little ones, woe to you if you destroy even one of them.  On your soul, however, are hosts of them, who have been ruined in your name, all of those over whom your power extends.

“But what can I do?” exclaimed the Tsar in despair.  “I do not wish to torture, to flog, to corrupt, to kill any one!  I only want the welfare of all.  Just as I yearn for happiness myself, so I want the world to be happy as well.  Am I actually responsible for everything that is done in my name?  What can I do?  What am I to do to rid myself of such a responsibility?  What can I do?  I do not admit that the responsibility for all this is mine.  If I felt myself responsible for one-hundredth part of it, I would shoot myself on the spot.  It would not be possible to live if that were true.  But how can I put an end, to all this evil?  It is bound up with the very existence of the State.  I am the head of the State!  What am I to do?  Kill myself?  Or abdicate?  But that would mean renouncing my duty.  O God, O God, God, help me!” He burst into tears and awoke.