He was dispatched to Siberia two days later, which
was on Christmas Eve, according to the Russian reckoning.

The wives of the Decembrists (the men exiled for revolutionary plots in
1825, at the accession to the throne of the Emperor Nicholas I.),
visited the Petrashevskyians in prison at Tobolsk and gave Dostoevsky a
copy of the Gospels. No other book made its way within the prison walls,
and after reading nothing else for the next three years, Dostoevsky,
according to his own words, "forced by necessity to read the Bible only,
was enabled more clearly and profoundly to grasp the meaning of
Christianity." In his "Notes from a Dead House" he has described in
detail his life in the prison at Omsk, and all his impressions. Prison
life produced an extremely crushing and unfavorable impression on him.
He was brought into close contact with the common people, was enabled to
study them, but he also became thoroughly imbued with that spirit of
mysticism which is peculiar to ignorant and illiterate people. His own
view of the universe was that of childlike faith, and prison life
strengthened this view by leading him to see in it the foundation of the
national spirit and the national life. During the last year of his
prison life, under a milder commandant, he was able to renew his
relations with former schoolmates and friends in the town, and through
them obtain more money, write home, and even come into possession of
books.

But his health was much affected, his nerves having been weak from
childhood, and already so shattered that, in 1846, he was on the verge
of insanity. Even at that time he had begun to have attacks by night of
that "mystical terror," which he has described in detail in "Humiliated
and Insulted," and he also had occasional epileptic fits. In Siberia
epilepsy developed to such a point that it was no longer possible to
entertain any doubt as to the character of his malady.

On leaving prison, in 1854, and becoming a soldier, Dostoevsky was much
better off. He was soon promoted to the rank of ensign, wrote a little,
planned "Notes from a Dead House," and in 1856 married. At last, after
prolonged efforts, he received permission to return to European Russia,
in July, 1859, and settled in Tver. In the winter of that year, his
rights, among them that of living in the capital, were restored to him,
and in 1861 he and his elder brother began to publish a journal called
"The Times." The first number contained the f