Its roof is rusted, the chimney half collapsed, the entrance steps have rotted and are overgrown with grass, and only traces of plaster remain.

Along the walls and beside the stove lie whole mountains of hospital refuse. Mattresses, old tattered dressing gowns, trousers, blue-striped shirts, worn-out and useless shoes; all these rags, thrown about at random, trampled underfoot and piled into heaps, are rotting and giving off a suffocating smell.

What purpose is served by the nerve centres and cerebral convolutions, by sight, speech, consciousness and genius, if all this is destined to return to the earth and, in the end, to grow cold with the earth’s crust and then, for millions of years, revolve senselessly and aimlessly with the earth around the sun? For it to grow cold and revolve in this way, there was no need at all to create man out of nothing with an intelligence so lofty, almost divine, and then, as if in mockery, turn him into clay.

You are a man who thinks and reflects. In any surroundings, you can find peace within yourself. Free and profound thought striving to understand life, and complete contempt for the foolish vanity of the world: these are the two highest blessings man has ever known. And you can possess them even if you live behind three sets of bars.

Anton Chekhov