The most terrible punishment is that, when hope for freedom is removed or extenuated for so many years (after completing katorga, one must live six years as an exile-settler and ten as a peasant to obtain the right to return within the boundaries of European Russia), a person finally loses patience and becomes sakhalinized.

After tortured ambivalence, certain educated exiles finally decide to take a katorga gal into their homes and basically settle down on the island. Then come the children and, with them, there naturally arises a familial connection to Sakhalin. Others remain strong, lead a normal life, and dream of a family in the future, ideally in Russia. Meanwhile, the best years go by, gray hairs prematurely emerge, old age visibly approaches. The knowledge that nearly all of his life is going by in a form of deceptive anticipation utterly oppresses a man. He becomes ill, nervous, irritable. Seeing an exile suffer mentally and physically on Sakhalin is terrible! And if death doesn't creep up in the form of consumption or some other illness, the unfortunate wretch finishes himself off with a bullet or strychnine. Some take to the consolation common to the grieving— vodka. If well-to-do freemen with families and holding a respected position on Sakhalin cannot endure life there and quench their melancholy with vodka, what can be expected of an exile?!

In Tymovsk District, there was no open sale of alcohol. It was brought in from Aleksandrovsk Post for exiled settlers only on the eve of big holidays. The arrival of liquor to Rykovsk was quite an event! In a moment, a throng of muzhiks and gals with their bottles came rushing from every corner to the community hut. Each was poured an amount predetermined by the commander. I knew of only one person on Sakhalin who did not avail himself of his right to purchase a bottle of alcohol from the treasury, everyone else begged to receive, if possible, more of the all-comforting drink, if not for themselves then to sell. Alcohol was a most lucrative article for a teetotaler on Sakhalin.