s when he felt the blow on his
face.

"Be off! Don't pretend you don't hear."

The inspector expected Stepan to be violent, to talk to the other
prisoners, to make attempts to escape from prison. But nothing of the
kind ever happened. Whenever the guard or the inspector himself looked
into his cell through the hole in the door, they saw Stepan sitting on a
bag filled with straw, holding his head with his hands and whispering to
himself. On being brought before the examining magistrate charged with
the inquiry into his case, he did not behave like an ordinary convict.
He was very absent-minded, hardly listening to the questions; but when
he heard what was asked, he answered truthfully, causing the utmost
perplexity to the magistrate, who, accustomed as he was to the necessity
of being very clever and very cunning with convicts, felt a strange
sensation just as if he were lifting up his foot to ascend a step and
found none. Stepan told him the story of all his murders; and did it
frowning, with a set look, in a quiet, businesslike voice, trying to
recollect all the circumstances of his crimes. "He stepped out of the
house," said Stepan, telling the tale of his first murder, "and stood
barefooted at the door; I hit him, and he just groaned; I went to his
wife, . . ." And so on.

One day the magistrate, visiting the prison cells, asked Stepan whether
there was anything he had to complain of, or whether he had any wishes
that might be granted him. Stepan said he had no wishes whatever,
and had nothing to complain of the way he was treated in prison. The
magistrate, on leaving him, took a few steps in the foul passage, then
stopped and asked the governor who had accompanied him in his visit how
this prisoner was behaving.

"I simply wonder at him," said the governor, who was very pleased with
Stepan, and spoke kindly of him. "He has now been with us about two
months, and could be held up as a model of good behaviour. But I
am afraid he is plotting some mischief. He is a daring man, and
exceptionally strong."

II

DURING the first month in prison Stepan suffered from the same agonising
vision. He saw the grey wall of his cell, he heard the sounds of the
prison; the noise of the cell below him, where a number of convicts were
confined together; the striking of the prison clock; the steps of the
sentry in the passage; but at the same time he saw HER with that kindly
face which conquered his heart the very first time he