t who mocked them brutally in a fit of
blind and savage rage.

As the investigation and the autopsy showed, the murderer dealt the last
blows after the people had been dead. It is very possible, however--even
murderers should be given their due--that the man, intoxicated by the
sight of blood, ceased to be a human being and became a beast, the son
of chaos, the child of dark and terrible desires. It was characteristic
that the murderer, after having committed the crime, drank wine and ate
biscuits--some of these were left on the table together with the marks
of his blood-stained fingers. But there was something so horrible
that my mind could neither understand nor explain: the murderer, after
lighting a cigar himself, apparently moved by a feeling of strange
kindness, put a lighted cigar between the closed teeth of my father.

I had not recalled these details in many years. They had almost been
erased by the hand of time, and now while relating them to my shocked
listeners, who would not believe that such horrors were possible, I felt
my face turning pale and my hair quivering on my head. In an outburst of
grief and anger I rose from my armchair, and straightening myself to my
full height, I exclaimed:

"Justice on earth is often powerless, but I implore heavenly justice,
I implore the justice of life which never forgives, I implore all the
higher laws under whose authority man lives. May the guilty one not
escape his deserved punishment! His punishment!"

Moved by my sobs, my listeners there and then expressed their zeal and
readiness to work for my liberation, and thus at least partly redeem the
injustice heaped upon me. I apologised and returned to my cell.

Evidently my old organism cannot bear such agitation any longer;
besides, it is hard even for a strong man to picture in his imagination
certain images without risking the loss of his reason. Only in this
way can I explain the strange hallucination which appeared before my
fatigued eyes in the solitude of my cell. As though benumbed I gazed
aimlessly at the tightly closed door, when suddenly it seemed to me that
some one was standing behind me. I had felt this deceptive sensation
before, so I did not turn around for some time. But when I turned around
at last I saw--in the distance, between the crucifix and my portrait,
about a quarter of a yard above the floor--the body of my father, as
though hanging in the air. It is hard for me to give the details, for
t