Thus it went on until the trial and the terrible meeting with his
parents. When he awoke in his cell the next day he realized clearly that
everything between him and life was ended, that there were only a
few empty hours of waiting and then death would come,--and a strange
sensation took possession of him. He felt as though he had been
stripped, stripped entirely,--as if not only his clothes, but the sun,
the air, the noise of voices and his ability to do things had been
wrested from him. Death was not there as yet, but life was there no
longer,--there was something new, something astonishing,
inexplicable, not entirely reasonable and yet not altogether without
meaning,--something so deep and mysterious and supernatural that it was
impossible to understand.

"Fie, you devil!" wondered Sergey, painfully. "What is this? Where am I?
I--who am I?"

He examined himself attentively, with interest, beginning with his large
prison slippers, ending with his stomach where his coat protruded. He
paced the cell, spreading out his arms and continuing to survey himself
like a woman in a new dress which is too long for her. He tried to turn
his head, and it turned. And this strange,, terrible, uncouth creature
was he, Sergey Golovin, and soon he would be no more!

Everything became strange.

He tried to walk across the cell--and it seemed strange to him that he
could walk. He tried to sit down--and it seemed strange to him that he
could sit. He tried to drink some water--and it seemed strange to him
that he could drink, that he could swallow, that he could hold the cup,
that he had fingers and that those fingers were trembling. He choked,
began to cough and while coughing, thought: "How strange it is that I am
coughing."

"Am I losing my reason?" thought Sergey, growing cold. "Am I coming to
that, too? The devil take them!"

He rubbed his forehead with his hand, and this also seemed strange to
him. And then he remained breathless, motionless, petrified for hours,
suppressing every thought, all loud breathing, all motion,--for every
thought seemed to him but madness, every motion--madness. Time was no
more; it appeared transformed into space, airless and transparent, into
an enormous square upon which all were there--the earth and life and
people. He saw all that at one glance, all to the very end, to the
mysterious abyss--Death. And he was tortured not by the fact that Death
was visible, but that both Life and Death were vis