dy he made a slip-knot out of them, and put it round his
neck, stood up in his bed, and hanged himself. But at the very moment
that his tongue began to protrude the straps got loose, and he fell
down. The guard rushed in at the noise. The doctor was called in, Stepan
was brought to the infirmary. The next day he recovered, and was removed
from the infirmary, no more to solitary confinement, but to share the
common cell with other prisoners.

In the common cell he lived in the company of twenty men, but felt as if
he were quite alone. He did not notice the presence of the rest; did not
speak to anybody, and was tormented by the old agony. He felt it most of
all when the men were sleeping and he alone could not get one moment of
sleep. Continually he saw HER before his eyes, heard her voice, and then
again the black devils with their horrible eyes came and tortured him in
the usual way.

He again tried to say his prayers, but, just as before, it did not help
him. One day when, after his prayers, she was again before his eyes, he
began to implore her dear soul to forgive him his sin, and release him.
Towards morning, when he fell down quite exhausted on his crushed linen
bag, he fell asleep at once, and in his dream she came to him with her
thin, wrinkled, and severed neck. "Will you forgive me?" he asked. She
looked at him with her mild eyes and did not answer. "Will you forgive
me?" And so he asked her three times. But she did not say a word, and
he awoke. From that time onwards he suffered less, and seemed to come to
his senses, looked around him, and began for the first time to talk to
the other men in the cell.

III

STEPAN'S cell was shared among others by the former yard-porter,
Vassily, who had been sentenced to deportation for robbery, and by
Chouev, sentenced also to deportation. Vassily sang songs the whole day
long with his fine voice, or told his adventures to the other men in the
cell. Chouev was working at something all day, mending his clothes, or
reading the Gospel and the Psalter.

Stepan asked him why he was put into prison, and Chouev answered that he
was being persecuted because of his true Christian faith by the priests,
who were all of them hypocrites and hated those who followed the law of
Christ. Stepan asked what that true law was, and Chouev made clear to
him that the true law consists in not worshipping gods made with hands,
but worshipping the spirit and the truth. He told him how he had