Towards evening I again experienced a sense of fear, now incomparably more intense. Of course, I could have denied everything, but they certainly could have found me out. I was haunted by the spectre of hard labour. I had never felt fear, and except for this one instance in my life, I was never afraid of anything, either before or after. And certainly not of Siberia in particular, although I could have been exiled there on more than one occasion. But this time I was frightened, and I really did feel fear — I don’t know why — for the first time in my life.
