"dungeon conditions," poisoned by air laden with the stench of excrement-buckets, and finally threatened with the whip when they complained, could endure no more. They resolved to make that last desperate protest against cruelty which is known in Russian prisons as a golodófka, or "hunger-strike." They sent a notification to Major Khaltúrin that their life had finally become unendurable, that they preferred death to such an existence, and that they should refuse to take food until they either perished or forced the Government to treat them with more humanity. No attention was paid to their notification, but from that moment not a mouthful of the food that was set into their cells was touched. As day after day passed, the stillness of death gradually settled down upon the prison. The starving convicts, too weak and apathetic even to talk to one another, lay in rows, like dead men, upon the plank sleeping-platforms, and the only sounds to be heard in the building were the footsteps of the sentries, and now and then the incoherent mutterings of the insane. On the fifth day of the golodófka Major Khaltúrin, convinced that the hunger-strike was serious, came to the prison and asked the convicts to state definitely upon what terms they would discontinue their protest. They replied that, the conditions of their life were unbearable, and that they should continue their self-starvation until the excrement-buckets were taken out of their cells, until they were permitted to have books and to exercise daily in the open air, until they were allowed to direct the expenditure of their money for better food and better clothing than were furnished by the Government, and until he [Khaltúrin] gave them a solemn assurance that none of them should be flogged. The commandant told them that the talk about flogging was nonsense; that there had never been any serious intention of resorting to the whip, and that, if they would end their strike, he would see what could be done to improve the material conditions of their life. Not being able to get any positive assurances
