My Aspiration

“The other prisoners sometimes laughed at him, principally because he had changed places on the march to Siberia in a convoy, and changed in return for a red shirt and a ruble in silver. It was because of the insignificant price for which he had sold himself that the prisoners laughed at him. To “change places” means to exchange names, and consequently destinies with somebody. However fantastic this may seem, it is a fact, and in my day it still flourished in Siberian prisoner’s convoys, hallowed by tradition and defined y settled forms.”

Dostoevsky “House of the Dead” p. 84