Recollections of the House of the Dead

Too Long; Didn't Read

At the outset of this chapter, the editor of the "Recollections" of the late Alexander Petrovitch Goriantchikoff thinks it his duty to communicate what follows to his readers. "In the first chapter of the 'Recollections of the House of the Dead,' something was said about a parricide, of noble birth, who was put forward as an instance of the insensibility with which the convicts speak of the crimes they have committed. It was also stated that he refused altogether to confess to the authorities and the court; but that, thanks to the statements of persons who knew all the details of his case and history, his guilt was put beyond all doubt. These persons had informed the author of the 'Recollections,' that the criminal had been of dissolute life and overwhelmed with debts, and that he had murdered his father to come into the property. Besides, the whole town where this parricide was imprisoned told his story in precisely the same way, a fact of which the editor of these 'Recollections' has fully satisfied himself. It was further stated that this murderer, even when in the jail, was of quite a joyous and cheerful frame of mind, a sort of inconsiderate giddy-pated person, although intelligent, and that the author of the 'Recollections' had never observed any particular signs of cruelty about him, to which he added, 'So I, for my part, never could bring myself to believe him guilty.'