met her in the
street, with that thin, strongly-marked neck, and he heard her soft,
lisping, pathetic voice: "To destroy somebody's soul . . . and, worst of
all, your own. . . . How can you? . . ."

After a while her voice would die away, and then black faces would
appear. They would appear whether he had his eyes open or shut. With his
closed eyes he saw them more distinctly. When he opened his eyes they
vanished for a moment, melting away into the walls and the door; but
after a while they reappeared and surrounded him from three sides,
grinning at him and saying over and over: "Make an end! Make an end!
Hang yourself! Set yourself on fire!" Stepan shook all over when he
heard that, and tried to say all the prayers he knew: "Our Lady" or "Our
Father." At first this seemed to help. In saying his prayers he began to
recollect his whole life; his father, his mother, the village, the dog
"Wolf," the old grandfather lying on the stove, the bench on which the
children used to play; then the girls in the village with their songs,
his horses and how they had been stolen, and how the thief was caught
and how he killed him with a stone. He recollected also the first prison
he was in and his leaving it, and the fat innkeeper, the carter's wife
and the children. Then again SHE came to his mind and again he was
terrified. Throwing his prison overcoat off his shoulders, he jumped out
of bed, and, like a wild animal in a cage, began pacing up and down his
tiny cell, hastily turning round when he had reached the damp walls.
Once more he tried to pray, but it was of no use now.

The autumn came with its long nights. One evening when the wind whistled
and howled in the pipes, Stepan, after he had paced up and down his cell
for a long time, sat down on his bed. He felt he could not struggle any
more; the black demons had overpowered him, and he had to submit. For
some time he had been looking at the funnel of the oven. If he could fix
on the knob of its lid a loop made of thin shreds of narrow linen straps
it would hold. . . . But he would have to manage it very cleverly. He
set to work, and spent two days in making straps out of the linen bag
on which he slept. When the guard came into the cell he covered the
bed with his overcoat. He tied the straps with big knots and made them
double, in order that they might be strong enough to hold his weight.
During these preparations he was free from tormenting visions. When the
straps were rea