ing to the judge who had not read the sentence,
and pointing with his finger at the judge who read it:

"He said that I should be hanged."

"Who do you mean?" asked the presiding judge, who had pronounced the
sentence in a deep, bass voice. Every one smiled; some tried to hide
their smiles behind their mustaches and their papers. Yanson pointed his
index finger at the presiding judge and answered angrily, looking at him
askance:

"You!"

"Well?"

Yanson again turned his eyes to the judge who had been silent,
restraining a smile, whom he felt to be a friend, a man who had nothing
to do with the sentence, and repeated:

"He said I should be hanged. Why must I be hanged?"

"Take the prisoner away."

But Yanson succeeded in repeating once more, convincingly and weightily:

"Why must I be hanged?"

He looked so absurd, with his small, angry face, with his outstretched
finger, that even the soldier of the convoy, breaking the rule, said to
him in an undertone as he led him away from the courtroom:

"You are a fool, young man!"

"Why must I be hanged?" repeated Yanson stubbornly.

"They'll swing you up so quickly that you'll have no time to kick."

"Keep still!" cried the other convoy angrily. But he himself could not
refrain from adding:

"A robber, too! Why did you take a human life, you fool? You must hang
for that!"

"They might pardon him," said the first soldier, who began to feel sorry
for Yanson.

"Oh, yes! They'll pardon people like him, will they? Well, we've talked
enough."

But Yanson had become silent again.

He was again placed in the cell in which he had already sat for a month
and to which he had grown accustomed, just as he had become accustomed
to everything: to blows, to vodka, to the dismal, snow-covered fields,
with their snow-heaps resembling graves.

And now he even began to feel cheerful when he saw his bed, the familiar
window with the grating, and when he was given something to eat--he had
not eaten anything since morning. He had an unpleasant recollection of
what had taken place in the court, but of that he could not think--he
was unable to recall it. And death by hanging he could not picture to
himself at all.

Although Yanson had been condemned to death, there were many others
similarly sentenced, and he was not regarded as an important criminal.
They spoke to him accordingly, with neither fear nor respect, just as
they would speak to prisoners who were not to be execut