 In the mental hospitals, Brodsky was given "tranquilizing" injections, wakened in the middle of the night, immersed into a cold bath, wrapped in a wet sheet, and put next to the heater so that the sheet would cut into his body when it dried.These two stints at psychiatric establishments formed the experience underlying "Gorbunov and Gorchakov" written and called by Brodsky "an extremely serious work.