hurry to bring the matter to court, as no one in Russia ever gave a thought to the sufferings of the human dust.
The third one of this group was a simple, illiterate peasant, with a long beard and with matted hair coming down over his forehead. He had also a leather strap fastened around his head, which made me take him for a village cobbler, an inference that was proved to be quite correct. I never learned what tumbled him into the stone bag. Perhaps when in his cups or in a fit of jealousy he had made too free a use of his short, sharp knife, with which he trimmed the leather for the village boots. I never found out and could only surmise. He was a morose individual, always deeply immersed in his own depressing thoughts, rather old, unalterably serious and usually quiet.
When I made bold to speak to him one day and to advise him to go for a walk, as I had observed that he never moved from his bench, he only shook his head and grunted:
"Leave me in peace. Nothing will help or hurt me any more, for I am doomed to die."
"Is it possible?" I exclaimed, knowing that he was still awaiting trial.
"A fortune teller," he answered with profound conviction, "told me that I was to die in sixty-three days. Of these I have only thirty left to live—then the end!" He sighed deeply, turned his face to the wall and was silent once more. The gentleman was certainly not what one would call sociable or talkative; still I understood his serious mood, as he was discounting each passing day and listening with acutely sharpened ears for the rattling approach of the dreaded reaper.
One day during the exercise hour some of the keepers and the Vice-Commandant entered the pen of the crim-
